UNCLE TOM AT HOME 



A REVIEW 



REVIEWERS AND REPUDIATORS 



UNCLE TUMS C.ySLN BV MRS. iSTOWE. 



BY F. C. ADAMS, 



LATK or CUARLLSTON, 50UIU CAKOLl.N. 



WILLIS r. HAZARD, 178 CHESTNUT ST., 

PHILADELPHIA. 

18 53. 



OS^>^" 



Entered according to Act of Conjrresf, in the year ISj... )iy 

WILLIS P. HAZARD, 

In the Clerk's Office" of the District Court for the Eastern Distu; t of 

rcunsvlvania. 



^cj iU ^ 



Stereotyped by S l o T E & M o o N E v, Philadcli.bia. 



A REVIEW FROM HOME 



IN ANSWER TO THE REVIEWERS AND REPUDIATORS 



ITiirlr Conrs Cnbin 



BY MRS. IIARRTET BEECIIER STOWE. 



F. C. ADAMS. 



Sntrninrtinu. 

TVe tare taken np the book upon its merits in an- 
swer to those who have preceded us upon its demerits. 
"We have viewed its spirit and intention at variance with 
its violent adversaries, and we know there are many 
good Southerners who do not differ with our opinions, 
and who would fain see the c-ankering evil removed. 
In their hands lies the remedy ; and if they will but ap- 
ply it, they can disarm their enemies. The point is 
there ; and while the many happy associarions which 
undoubtedly exist between master and servant should 
be properiy valued, the imperfections and miseries of 
an institution, that weighs heavy in the balance of a 
great coimtry, should not be buried under their mantle. 
There are many phases in the institution, and we shall 
endeavour to give those phases impartially in a forth- 
coming work. The Southerner knows, and acknow- 
ledges the evil which is upon him — and if he will, he can 
do more to stay the bad master's cruelty than all the 
force of organised bodies at a distance. In our c-om- 

(r) 



vi iNTKODrCTIOX. 

parisons we hire not wandered fir away from the 
homes of the reviewers who have prece-lad us, and 
have onlv cited sneh instances as mnst be faynili a r to 
them, and to which we have calle»d the attention of onr 
brethera of the press, while at the sjuth. We give 
the &eis with a knowledge that no fiction, however 
great the scope of imagination may l-e. can ont-gUre 
the reality in its dark phase, pictmred by the Anthor. 

r. C. .U)AX3^ 



A REVIEW TO THE REVIEVTEES. 



r A SOriHEP. XEE. 



That book of books, that has passed the ordeal 
of all scribblers, from the lordly down to the 
penny-a-liner, still continues unharmed. It has 
afforded many themes for little genius, and great 
points for great men, who have poured out their 
vehemence against it only to give it greater pre- 
eminence. And now that Southern criticism has 
exhausted itself, ceased its struggles, and yielded 
its force to Northern champions, who out-southern 
Southerners in the front rank of the pro-slavery 
charge. From the sagacious political reviewer, 
who has heaped his vengeance upon its pilgrim 
head, it has passed to the more amiable mcmtli- 
lits, who have hitherto contented themselves with 



8 Uncle Tom AT Home. 

pleasant musings, and governed their modesty to 
please fair ladies. These latter, with Godey and 
Graham's goodly numbers combined, have assumed 
the sponsorship, and aspire to do for the South 
what the South will not do for herself— uphold the 
wrongs of slavery. Their motive is their own — 
we shall pass it, and if their hopes be realized, 
let us trust the recompense will be applied to a 
good cause. Since it is so, we claim a right to 
make a few remarks from a home source — a sim- 
ple, comparative review, which can neither offend 
nor injure a good cause. 

But let us ask : why has South Carolina shown 
such manifold earnestness in her rebukes against 
a " Yankee Woman's" little book ? Her sensitive 
chivalry seems shocked ; the theory of her fortunes 
is told; truth is uncomfortable, and her slave 
philosophy quails beneath its influence. Her 
best panegyrists have come forth to preserve her 
honour, disclosing the secret of making base spirits 
noble, and with singularly potent and persuasive 
sunny effusions, plead the intensity of love for 
truth. Are they sincere ? 

Poor "Uncle Tom," like a pilgrim on his weary 
way, still continues through Christendom. What 



Uncle Tom AT Home. 9 

a lie-reading world tliis of ours must be, if South- 
ern statements be true ! 

-But if South Carolina criticism be true, why 
not give it to us by a rule of consistency ? not 
by that vain flourish that would encircle wrong 
with an excessive brightness, and make South Ca- 
rolina the principality of the South. 

The criminal trembles when truth is deposed 
against him— so it is with those who oppose the 
material subject of this book, reviewing it upon 
technicalities instead of principle, and thus South 
Carolina, more sickly than her sisters, calls loudest 
for a physician. 

The truth lays prostrate at her own door, and 
her defenders make her wrongs right with the 
beauty of abstractions, rather than acknowledge 
the evil, and create justice the guardian of power. 
The simple truth has found its way, amid her ham- 
pered necessities, to the very fountain of material 
wrong, kindling the inventive ambition of her va- 
liant sons ; and unblushing in that shame which 
sets the moralist and philanthropist at defiance, 
they come forward to the world to tell it of pious 
slavery and its joys. 

If slavery be full of joy and piety, why nurture 



10 U X C L E T M A T II M E. 

that spirit, so manifestly your ovm, tliat would 
plunge a dagger to the heart of him who dare 
speak liberty in your streets? These loud accla- 
mations, *' soundings of joy," ^'beauties of truth," 
and domestic homilies, cannot awaken the sympa- 
thy of common sense, much less the confidence of 
those -S-ho have been casual sojourners in the 
South. 

But it may be asked, why do we take up the 
book ? 

We answer, because we have witnessed the ma- 
nifest workings of that peculiar institution — seen 
the different phases of Southern life, and watched 
them in their changing attitudes. And while do- 
ing this, it was the fortune of our misfortunes to 
be placed where we could witness the misery, woe, 
suffering and brutality of the slave system. Yea — 
not only the miseries of the slave system itself, 
but the dissolute and degraded condition which it 
entailed upon the poor, labouring whites. The 
primrose of a name has done much for the South, 
and yet all is not substance that glitters there ; 
the legends of her shaded bowers, vast plantations, 
noble hearted planters with human wealth in store, 
are things that have lived in a name and die in 
the shadow. 



Uncle Tom AT Home. n 

To South Carolina they are like the golden 
dreamof her Southern Congress, and /.„/p,ized 
cq„a„,„.,ty-things lost in their o.n existence. 
True generosity and hospitality have their founda- 
tions at home ; and it becomes us to inquire how 
far we must credit the grandeur of those noble 
charactensties to those who would starve a human 
bemg at home-estrange the last stage of spent 
l.fe-measure his peck of corn with mathematical 
exactness, and quibble over his task to sound a 
name abroad. Men who mount upon the higher 
>-puIse of popular ascendency must maintait it 
byjust.ce and right; they must second their pro- 
testations with the patriotism of justice in its mo- 
ral and legal qualifications; they must first re- 
eogn,ze the things that are arou.^ them, callin. 
'or the good will of man to man. The dav has 
passed when men could mount some high-born pn.- 
naele, and sound their stentorious voices in behalf 
of the moral grandeur of an institution, when its 
hideous vices stared them in the face at every 
turn. Such soundings have become inefl-ectual, 
then- misconstructions too glaring; and the motive 
too boldly outlined to need a delineator. But we 
''■'" '''''="^« t''o»e things in their proper places. 



12 U N C L i: T u M A 1 11 u M t . 

i 

'i'lif viviJ recollection of many happy associa- 
tions at the Soutl), the frientl»hip wo have met, 
the kindness of those who knew us through strange 
vicibaiiutles, anil our well known position, cou- 
strainti us to touch many thin<;s as lightly a« pos- 
sible, and to pay due deference to the fine-strung 
sensibilities of our brethren. We take up the sub- 
ject of the book in adiuiraiiun of its truthful de- 
lineation of a species of Southern life, and the 
spirit of its intention, to point those who have 
gone before us, especially W. liilmore Simum, 
Esq., to faets which are Bceminglj overlookeii. 
Let us /i<7>«f it was not intentional, nor shared fur 
the hope of gain or fame. 

The question is, r/i<; book ; the ** Yankee Wo- 
man's'' book — its truth or falsehood. 

Christendom has passed judgment upon it, and 
South Carolina has reputliated it. Her chival- 
rous sons, from the poet and play-frri/rr to the 
wayfaring scribbler, who throws his mite into the 
hopper to decorate the columns of " the Court- 
have volunteered their energy, fervor and wi^dom 
to thwart the influence of a *' Yankee Woman's" 
little book. There is a fanciful pleasure in cher- 
ishing these domestic oir>iirii)i:p, harmless abroad, 



Uncli: Tum at Home. 13 

ami so in keeping with those spirit-burning toasts 
at home, that they become the best and most val- 
uable advertisements of the book. They carry 
the feelings of a vigorous minority into tlie keen 
senses of the di.stant observer, showing that the 
truth must be strong against a selfish institution, 
\Nlicn so much fiery opposition is marshalled to 
1 epel such a small messenger. 

Many of these liamiless, little flashes of the 
brain are beneath criticism, for they neither im- 
part character, regard truth, nor plead the honest 
Southerner's cause. 

licforc wo take up Mr. Simms' ^'Southern 
\iew," we must give a passing notice of that 
tiovcl and particular point in a work — well di- 
gested in South Carolina — entitled, ''Slavery in 
".he Southern States," the accredited production 

*.f a Mr. P , a member of the legal profession 

in Charleston, claiming caste in the higher walk. 

AVe will not charge ^Ir. 1* witli want of 

forbearance in his mission, nor lack of profound 
devotion to his cause — for in these Mr. Simms 
would have added consistency to his review liad 
he copied his moderation. But unfortunately for 
the genius of Mr. ]' , he has shown the com- 



V 



14 Uncle T u m a t 11 o Ji e . 

plex nature of his subject to be so great that he is 
troubled to find a beginning, and stop at the end- 
ing. Enjoining many good things upon an incu- 
rious and forbearing pubhc, he seems to forget 
that in displaying the beauty of am table weakness 
the object of the book is lost upon the mind of 
the general reader, and that which he intended 
for force is taken for speculation. The rea 

will ask us, What is Mr. P 's object ; 

It is to in-ove that slavery enforces ChiisUauiiy 
—in other words, that it is a divine transcendent. 
Vuth his ascetic mode of reasoning, he has not 
classified the sources from which he has drawn 
his result, nor given us the difi'erence between the 
established morale of true Christianity, and the 
Christianity of usage made to conserve obedience. 
Nor has he descended to the latent power which 
holds the absolute force and intention of his own 
involuntary Christianity. The Southerner tells 
you 'twere well to Christianize his property be- 
cause of its value, and as a better means of sub- 
jection. At the same time he tells you the chui 
is all humbug, and holding .absolute power ovc 
the material object, he becomes the self-appointed 
apostle of its Christian virtues. Accordinr-- to Mr. 



■cli 
r 



TJ N C L E T M A T II M E . 15 

P 's dictum the whole force of this species 

of Christianity is dependent upon the moral char- 
ncter of the slaveholder ; yet he has not given us 
the quality of tliat morality, which, according to 
his own arguments, is to become the great regula- 
tor of his divine institution. We have no inclina- 
tion to question the scale of morality with South- 
erners, nor its influence upon the slave, who, by 
necessity, studies his master's nature, and fre- 
quently copies his vices ; but the proof ogainst 

Mr. P 's doctrine is too deeply founded in 

national sense to need any further strength of 
argument. 

Nor do we want their mathematical and meta- 
physical conclusions, because there is a more sim- 
ple mode of testing them ; yet we are at a loss 

to know how Mr. P , with his own private 

knowledge, could have arrived at such Christian 
conclusions, unless he has fallen into those by-gone 
errors of a forced theology, overlooking the truth 
of practical results, illustrated at his ovm door. 

In all our intercourse with Southerners, we 
never heard one claim moral caste for the institu- 
tion of slavery ; but not unfrequently have we 
heard them denounce instances of outrage upon 



16 Uncle Tom AT Home. 

chastity, sustained in the rights of the master, 
and beyond the remedy of laws made to govern 
the outraged. With our knowledge of social life 
in Charleston, we feel no hesitation in saying, 

that Mr. P 's erudition in behalf of the divine 

precepts of slavery will prove as novel to Southern 
readers, as it will be forcible to those of more 
Northern sensibility. But the reader must re- 
member that the quality, depth, and attributes of 
Christianity, according to the rule of progress, 
lire at the present day measured by a scale of 
locality. That which is made the medium of an 
accommodating morality in Charleston, would be 
rejected as unwholesome by the sterner judgment 
of the New Englander. 

Upon these considerations, we can be charitable 

with Mr. P , and attribute his singular errors 

to the fact of having founded the sliding-scale of 
his Christian conclusions upon the texture of this 
species of morality — a morality opening a grand 
arena for the pleasures of those who wish to enjoy. 
It was fortunate for the author that his book came 
out at an unfortunate time, otherwise his reputa- 
tion for literary pursuits would have reflected upon 
his legal abilities: vet there is nothing without 



Uncle Tom at Home. 17 

its consolation, and Mr. P has his in a know- 
ledge of his book being a book for Jiome, and not 
for the critical observation of a reading public in 
this enlightened age. He has lost the medium 
which enlists the confidence of the common reader, 
in trying to bury the issue of natural law with the 
beauties of his pen ; a fault much in vogue by 
those who consider themselves polished writers. 

Had he traced the effect of a small minority 
governing a majority, he would have qualified his 
moral disclosures, and made a small exception for 
those evils which must naturally arise from the force 
of power necessary to subject one to the will of the 
other. Or if he had treasured his divine disco- 
veries, contrasted them with the prospect of that 
majority being held in an absolute and abject con- 
dition, subject to the good or bad traits of the 
master's character — his positive will — changing 
fortunes, and those unforeseen events which have 
brought so many poor wretches into the hands of 
t^^rants, he would have added force and consis- 
tency to his book, strengthening the better divi- 
sion of his cause. His efforts might have pro- 
mised something in the future, instead of burden- 
ing his logic with the beauties of slave-life. His 



18 Uncle Tom AT Home. 

generosity would have had life, and he, with some 
plausibility, claimed a hopeful diffusion of spirit- 
ual life for his slave, and made the common reader 
hclieve there was truth in it. 

Our object being to notice the book upon one 
point only — the only one upon which it claims 
attention, we shall give Mr. P a simple con- 
trast, leaving the reader to draw his own conclu- 
sions. It is a simple and singular process of test- 
ing Mr. P -'s logic, but having lived in his 

own neio-hbourhood we will invite him to its stand- 
ard of morality. 

Will you go with us into the innumerable by- 
ways of your " sunny city ?" They are lined with 
little cottages, inhabited by semi-saxon females, 
whose flaxen-headed children know a father — not 
to recognise him as such, but to fear him. "We 
will enter together ! The picture around us is 
full of measured humbleness — shall we ask the 
unhappy woman who prides in being the mistress 
of a gentleman, who is her ^'friend f No, we 
will not ask her, for custom has made it a social 
generality — we hnoiv ! Let us trace him to his 
mansion, because they are things of common life. 
He has a pretty family there, and they go to 



Uncle Tom at Home. 19 

church every Sunday. Certainly ! there's no get- 
ting over that — and papa goes too^ puts on one 
of the very best faces for Christian modesty, opens 
the prayer book for dear wife, pats the little legi- 
timates on the head, and reminds them of their 
duty to the good parson's sermon. While this 
very necessary species of puritanism is manifest- 
ing itself below, his pensive mistress sits in the 
gallery, enjoying the sovereign contemplation of 
her own feelings. Around her, are those little, 
interesting intermixtures, doubted and disowned, 
peeking over the railing at " daddy below,'' like 
as many ferrets motioning about a stone wall : but 
they must not insinuate with their fingers. 

There is a wide difference between the quantity 
and quality of Christianity ; and the latter should 
be well judged before the former is credited. 

We are treading on delicate ground ; but must 

invite Mr. P to go further with us, and be a 

missionary among the specimens. 

Which way will you go — east, west, north or 
south ? We are now in the centre of the city, 
and the course is immaterial. The same prospect 
is before us in every street, lane, and alley, and 
on the nech Here are the demonstrators — you 



*■<* 



20 Uncle T o im a t II o .^i e . 

know tliem, and you must not shut your eyes, 
nor feel about for Christianity. Well ! we'll 
step into Old Ned Johnson's on the neck. It is 
a miserable rookery, but an average sample of 
those '''•all around toiun' — not excepting those 
attached to several princely dwellings. Don't 
stop at the door, because it '' a'nt so neat as your 
own little place." Sit down on that primitive 
box by the fire-place. Yes, that's well ; put your 
handkerchief over it. ^'Ncd don't keep things 
the nicest," nor does *' old Misses lef ' um nuf to 
hab' chare fo gemmen." Ned's simple story is a 
counterpart of what could be told by thousands in 
your city — at least, seven-tenths of the coloured 
population of your city. 

Ned is one of the cleverest "old nifro^ers" 
about ; black as a crow, honest as any nigger, 
'-''for all niggers 'II steal,'' and has always worked 
just like a nigger. His wencli, old Mumma, is 
as motherly an old " thing" as you ever did see, 
and a Christian at that. Yes, just as sound as a 
nutmeg in her belief, and thinks she'll go to hea- 
ven just as "straight as white folks." Y^ou must 
see her, and learn from her the very best original 
ideas of Christianity; give ear to her simple 



U N C L E T M A T II M E . 21 

dialogue — and if you comprehend her logic, it 
may assist in propping up your new system of 
Christianity — founded upon the slave law. Ned 
will go and bring her in. 

Three young imps, as " black as vengeance," 
half naked, and as dirty as wharf-rats, come 
scampering into the house — perfect pictures of 
Old Ned. They rumage about the house, and in 
the old basket where Ned keeps his "nigger fod- 
der, " to find some corn cake. But da's nofin 
da', no corn to make im wid." Its scratch- 
ing times with Ned ; he's been laid up nearly a 
week with a lame arm, his time is running on, 

and that old widow A m would grind his 

marrow bones for the wages. 

You say : — " Well — we — know ; there's a good 
many hard cases about town — and especially these 
foreigners that buy slaves to profit by their in- 
crease, selling their own children in the market. 
But — good Lord, it would'nt do to be everlast- 
ingly bothering yer head about the troubles be- 
tween niggers and their masters. Its infernal 
unpopular ; you'd get yourself into a pretty fix 
about town." 

Ned has returned, and with an humble suavity, 



22 U N C L E T I\I A T H M E . 

informs us that Mumma " come fo' soon." She's 
got some work at fifty cents a day, which will help 
to pay old Misses for Ned's time. Let us ask 
Ned a few questions. 

" How old are you, Ned ?" 
" Ha ! hah! ! ha-e ! ! ! Why Massa, hard fo1i 
tell dat. Spose I's 'bout sixty som 'ow. Old 
Miss say 't'ant so by good pile. Lor, Ned know 
what Old Miss up to. Can't wuk no how, Massa, 
like when I out on old Massa plantation ; old Miss 
know dat, ' but no' Icf im gone ; drive old Ned 
jus so yet." 

" Where do you work, Ned ?" 
• *' I stows cotton on de waf; I'ze fus rate at 
dat; gets dollar and seven pence a day." 

" How much a month do you give old Missis 
for your time — clear share ?" 

"Why Lor, Massa, dat 'quire some calatin. 
WHien old Massa lib' an I cumes down to wuk 
ater all done gone on plantation, den I pays old 
Massa twenty dollars ebey mont. Old Massa 
good old boss ; when Ned did im up right, gin 
um dollar now and den !" 

" We don't care about that ; we want to know 
what you pay now !" 



Uncle Tom at Home. 23 

" Well, old Massa die — good old soul ; you 

now'd him Mass P , dat you did. Den Massa 

Genl. Hamilton cum cecutor ob de state ; he no'd 
I 'warnt right, an 'e jus make old Miss content 
ersef wid sixteen dollars." 

^' Do you support your "wife and family with 
the balance ?" 

" Sartin — must do dat, an old Miss such 
straight Christian make Ned gib for'h dollars fo 
church ebe year. Old Miss look right sharp fo' 
cash. Put em-up in jail once, den send em to wok- 
ouse, and give em hinger cus lef wages run pass 
one week ! Lor, Massa, Old Ned seen some ard 
time in is life — tell you dat. But my old woman 
gals got fuss rate friends — help some, old 3Iiss 
knoiv dat." 

" Ah ! how's that ? What's the difference 
between your children and her children ?" 

" Whew ! mighty site massa, you know dat. 
Doiit take no losopher what own slaves to reckon !" 

" How long have you been married, Ned?" 

"Massa, jus long nuf 't hab dem tree," point- 
ing to the woolly-headed imps who had huddled 
into the fire place. " Old woman hab two ' hn(/Jit 
gaV fo I marry her !" he continues with emphasis. 



24 U N C L E T M A T H M E . 

3^es! she was a widow when you married 
her : — ****. 

" Massa, I sees yes green, 'aint liv souf long no 
how. Old Massa know all bout dem gal. He 
says gwine to lef 'em free when 'e die ; but 
Buchra very unsartin, an 'e don knovr if 'e die 
wen he gwine to. Old Miss watch dat an put em 
fo'h true. Boff on em be mighty likely gals.'' 

"Well, Ned, where is Nancy now?" 

*' Lor, Massa, you knows ; her friend keep big 
store on de Bay (street next the wharves). " Da 
'ant no bigger geman den he bout town." 

" Did he buy her from old Missis ?" 

*' He did dat — gin her nine hundred dollar. 
Nancy got right smart boy now, jus as bright as 
you is, Massa.'' 

"Misses always goes to church — does she Ned ?" 

" Yah ! yah ! ! yah ! 1 1 she what do dat ; neber 
hear church bell ring widout see old Misses gwine." 

" Honest Christian I What a pleasure there is 
in faith,'' thought we. 

"Did she ever sell you, Ned?" 

" Old Missis get strange bout two year ater old 
Massa die, and sell mo way down Christ Parish 
— get right good heap for mc den. But lor, Mas- 



Uncle TomatHome« 25 

sa, dej work nigger down da anyhow, and don't 
gin notin to eat nohow. It aint no way to make 
nigger wuk so. No bacon to grese 'e troat wid, 
and stick de lash to 'e back so ! I mose dead in 
two years, and beg old Miss to buy me back, cos I 
warn't wuf much nohow." 

" What did they feed you on, Ned, and what were 
your Christian principles ?" 

" Just what all Massa's gib nigger down yon- 
der — peck corn every week — nofin else. Massa 
how I gwine to be Christian? No lef em read — 
no Church, and Massa Carl say work for sef on 
Sunday, get bacon. Massa take 'e dog an go 
hunt Sunday. Nigger work 'e own patch for get 
bacon and lasses. Mighty few planters what gib 
nigger bacon down Christ Parish." 

<'Could'nt you steal, Ned?" 

"Why, Massa, jes foce to dat— do I warnt 
Christian. Buckra man say all nigger steal — 
spose I jes' well own him. But Massa, nigger 
don't steal wus den Buckra gin him same chance 
for nuff to eat. But 'e mighty dangerous business 
fo' nigger. We tefe Massa Genl. Quattlebum hog 
down swamp one night. Massa Genl. hear de 
sarpent squeal, an cum wid 'e gun. Whiz ! ziz ! ! 



26 Uncle Tom at Home. 

ziz ! ! ! de way he shoot 'em wid 'e double barrel 
mose kill Jef an rae — den old Massa buck de 
whole on us next mornin. Lor, I beg old Miss take 
me back, so I see my old woman. Old Miss tink 
sometime by-'n-bye feel like Christian an did em 
straight. Iz a Christian now, Massa, an wanted 
to be one den, but old Massa no lef em nohow." 

Here comes old Mumma ; a description of her 
is unnecessary — we only want her simple experi- 
ence in our author's theology. She has been a 
hard worker in virtuous toil, and yet she struggles 
to get the price of a corn cake and a little hominy. 
Two beautiful "bright gals" follow her. They 
are finely formed, with classic faces, features well 
developed, and enlivened by the striking beauties 
of Saxon birth. One seems a few years older 
than the other — neither look like Mumma, and yet 
they are hers. She's right glad to see us, but her 
domicile is the index of poverty, and she feels con- 
scious that she cannot receive us properly. But 
we must know her experience. 

" Mumma, what has made you a good Chris- 
tian ?" 

'' Don know dat ? — Why, de Lord ! dat jus as 
sartin as Massa Buckra preach." ******* 



Uncle TomatHome. 27 

"Well, Mumma, whose girls are these ?" 

" 0, dem mine fa' true : hab dem long time ago. 
Old Massa high old boy den." 

" And these little woolly-headed rascals — yours 
too, Mumma ?" 

"Jus so true — Ned know dat." 

"Ah, Mumma!" ******* 

" Why Lor, Massa, how I helf him ? Old Massa 
own me den, an 'e lash 'e back ." 

" Were you a Christian then, Mumma ?" 

" P— s— h ! ! What you ax dat fo' ? How I 
be Christian wen Massa no lef em ! Iz go for 
Church den. Cus Massa say he best ; and nigger 
alays like to ! Ater Ned and I gets married fo' 
true den I jins de Church wid Ned — true Chris- 
tian den !" 

" Is your eldest daughter married, Mumma ?" 

" Why, Massa, she married jus like all bright 

gals. Her friend buy her of old Missis 

long time ago. He rich geman — * do welV by 
her so far: God know Massa how long he last so; 
Buckra very unsartin in such, tings. Just like 
'e marry somebody, den send she to Old Massa 
Gadsden for sell—" * * * * 

This is a simple mode of testing the quality of 



28 Uncle Tom at Home. 

Mr. P 's specific theology ; but we must pro- 
ceed a little further. 

" Does she go to church, Mumma ?" 
" I would'nt be dat gal if she didn't go to 
church — neber miss em. She just de Christian 
what 'Buckra man' make her." 

"About this other one, Mumma — Christian 

too r 

"Why, Massa, what make 'e ax sich questions — 
ye 'ant parson nohow : — Her ' friend' fus rate 
geman — ^but im done want nofin said bout it cos 
he jine de church 'e sef. Old Misses know it sar- 
tin fo true." 

"Does Old Misses own her yet ?" 

" Lor, yes ! Dat gal pay Old Miss four dollar 
ebe week — dare at dat.'' 

" There's no doubt of Old Missis being a good 
Christian ?" 

" Massa, you know Old Miss ; she's jist the 
straifist Christian ye ever seed — say prayer an 
reckon on what parson say wid de gospel straight 
in 'er eye." 

Let us ask Mr. P if he can walk the 

streets of Charleston without these evidences 
staring him in the face at every step ? Custom 



Uncle Tom AT Home. 29 

has tolerated them, and the most flagrant licen- 
tiousness finds an apology in his arguments. Go 
where you will, and you find this debasing moth 
spreading disease in the humble artizan's domi- 
cile, and gathering around the mazes of your 
S(^ial castes. Virtue has become divisional, 
prized in one sphere and invalid in another, and 
men treat it as a thing of little worth — save what 
serves the needs of home. This is commented 
upon at home, lamented, and even censured by 
your better citizens. 

Why deny their existence ? Time and space 
have become annihilated by the progress of the 
age. Men look for themselves, and as you are 
not beyond the sphere of observation, they have 
their opinions upon the things of common obser- 
vation. The proof, governed by this, places your 
arguments in an unenviable light, showing the 
weakness of your tenacity. Were it not that we 
know the sensitive observation of the author, we 
might excuse the motive, and advise him to stud^ 
life in Ms own city. 

We have merely traced this mingling of the 
species on a retrograde scale ; if our learned 
friend wishes us to trace its mathematical details 



30 Uncle Tom at Home. 

to the issue — ^bringing the lawful and social effects 
of the institution to their proper place — we will 
do so. The task is no difficult one, a child may 
point to it with unerring aim — and yet you seem 
not to see it. 

Let us go back to the church ; take these two 
interesting families, one setting in the richly 
cushioned pew, the other in the gallery. Reader, 
do not blush ! We are only reasoning upon com- 
mon principles of natural law — that is, according 
to the principles of Southern theology. Perhaps 
we should have particularized upon our own dis- 
cernment, arranging the very fine traces of the 
combined fabric into classes, and defined the 

effect upon each. In this Mr. P must excuse 

us, for having wandered beyond his own depths 
in material metaphysics. We have no inclination 
to follow him, resting our apology upon the plea 
of indefinite latitude, and the delicate colouring 
it would give to his licensed Christianity. 

Between these families the laws of nature have 
made but a small division, yet establishing the 
same natural affections. By the laws and customs 
of slavery, a parent is made to disown his own 
material offspring — instead of restoring them to a 



Uncle Tom AT Home. 31 

seat of elevation. Usage countenances the ma- 
teriality in the parents, makes the mother abject, 
and the father ashamed of its effects. He sees 
the life-blood of his own being, but dare not 
recognize it because its spiritual life is branded 
with shame. Its ambition becomes ineffectual, 
thus hung between law and custom, and in a ma- 
jority of cases deprives it of a higher transfor- 
mation, making the misery that surrounds it more 
painful. Here the father is compelled to foster 
unnatural feelings to counteract natural affec- 
tions — evading the natural and destroying the 
better qualifications of domestic goodness. This 
accounts for that unholy and worst phase of 
slavery — men selling their own children, which 
we have frequently witnessed, and heard de- 
nounced at the public vendue. 

Thus, while Mr. P * is struggling to estab- 
lish a Christian adultery, these combined particles 
of Saxon and African nature are transforming 
themselves into a process of degeneration, hurried 
onward by a singular contrariety between law and 
custom. How is this ? It is simply because these 
unfortunates have the same blOod quickening 
* Slavery in the Southern States, by a CaroHnian. 



32 Uncle Tomat Home. 

througli their veins that the legitimates have. 
They know them, with the feelings of brother and 
sister, but the ardour to breathe the love of brother 
and sister is rejected by a jpoint of law, and forced 
obedience. 

Three of this law-distrained family are females, 
pretty, interesting, and "likely." The pride of 
parentage burns within them — they speak of it, 
and cherish the phantom of a father's wealth ; but 
they must only mention it to those of their class, 
or those who question them as friends. Here they 
are poised between the stimulant of pride and the 
force of shame. Shall they cast themselves into 
Afric's darkness, or proceed to transform them- 
selves into a higher state of Saxon blood ? They 
cannot do the latter, for the mother is the testor, 
and she continues to be a negro to the law, though 
her skin become as white as snow. She can be 
as black as any nigger, or as ivliite as any nigger, 
and yet she is a nigger at last, entailing the same 
transcendent upon her offspring. The law rules 
by the mother, the father being a negative de- 
pendence. " Niggers" and white men are distinc- 
tive in the South, both in law and custom — with- 
out regard to the qualifications of the latter or the 



Uncle Tomat Home. 33 

contrasting tints of the former. This may be 
right if constructed to serve a moral purpose ; but 
where it is made to conserve a medium of degra- 
dation it becomes most intolerant. 

"VVe have seen negroes much whiter than whites, 
morally and sightly, and yet they were held by 
the thumb-screw of law, the bond property of man. 
Some amusingly nice points of jurisprudence have 
been developed in South Carolina, where white 
men have been compelled to prove themselves 
such, in order to escape the escheator of the State. 
In these cases her learned Judges displayed deep 
metaphysical research, and a knowledge of trans- 
mutability far above their legal erudition. But 
to these children. , 

In their own feelings they are not " niggers,'' 
and to call them such intentionally, or uninten- 
tionally, would be a painful offence.; nor do they 
recognise their mother as such, although custom 
having placed her in the category — and by law 
the property of the master, as well as his mistress, 
she can be nothing else. They talk of " niggers" 
just as we do, aspire to something more graceful, 
repulsing the idea of associating witl} "darkies," 
and as a seeming necessity, find themselves entan- 
8 



34 Uncle Tom at Home. 

gled in a mistress's guilty love — by force, consent, 
sales, voluntary asperities, or by a false measure 
of friendship. They are all equally demoralising 
in their effects upon society, and may be traced 
to that force of law which gives one class power 
to hold another in an abject position, and makes 
necessity the mother of shame. 

If the father be a good, " generous-souled South- 
erner," he will do well by them, and their friends 
will see them " righted." At the same time they 
hang by a thready, subject to all the father's change 
of fortune, unforeseen incidents and impulse of feel- 
ing, and the capricious abandonment of "friends." 
They are still the property of his estate, and the 
objects <^ administration ; and the worst features of 
their misfortunes is that which subjects them to 
the will of executors and the avarice of heirs. We 
have seen this painfully carried out. If Mr. 

P wishes us to cite cases, we will refer him to 

the judicial records of his own district. 

He has given us a book setting forth the divine 
love of Christian adultery, over which JoJm Bun- 
yan might have wept in mimic sorrow, and White 
field shown his love for Bible texts. As "Gc^-i :s 
love" to those who love him, so our author must 



• 



Uncle TomatHome. 35 

have imagined his book a sunny legend of loveli- 
ness, domestic piety, and good will for those who 
flatter his logic while enjoying the benefit of its 
elements. But let us admit, for argument, that 
this property remains in statu-quo ; does not seven- 
tenths of it, after suffering a series of abandon- 
ment by "friends," realize its deplorable condi- 
tion, and seek a lower association than the " mise- 
rable nigger ?" Our observation has brought us 
to this conclusion. Thus in that phase of slave- 
life it is working to the worst retrograde state. 
This is the most practical result ; sometimes it is 
otherwise, and if they fall into strange hands and 
are sent off — to where, is not for the every-day 
business man to know — some live to eke out a 
miserable life of which the New Englander has no 
conception. 

Now Mr. P , can you stand in a city where 

this is but a feeble picture on the panorama that 
is every day moving before your eyes, and contra- 
dict your own feelings by statements that astound 
common sense ? Can you see specific and legalized 
vice stalking abroad at noon-day, filling your by- 
ways and market-places, enveloping it in a mantle 
of crime at night, and tell us it is not so ? Had you* 



36 Uncle Tom at Home. 

listened to the independent voice that denounced 
it, in Hibernian hall, a few months ago — pointing 
out those who gave it life, and fostered its corrup- 
tion — and noted the unpopular feeling that awaited 
him, you would have found exceptions for Chris- 
tian slavery, saving the expense of that theology 
which you have founded upon the ruins of mo- 
rality. 

Examine its complex system where you may — 
in the parlour, among the mechanics, in the field, 
branches of labour about the city, or in the mis- 
tress' humble shelter, the same effects of neces- 
sity and blasted emblems of social life are there, 
living in the hope of Christian adultery. We 
trace the dark labyrinth where nature's mystery 
hangs her veil, and there we find the cause. In 
that specific construction of law — made to concert 
power against a class whose lives are negative 
to themselves, and while they assume to protect 
them, give them no access to them — these laws 
have but a statute existence^ and are not only 
made null by the social complexion of society, 
but cease to be effectual through the prerogative 
and popular administration of common law. 
^Trace the statutes of South Carolina from 1803 to 



Uncle ToMAT Home. 37 

the present time, and you will find them disposing 
of the rights of the slave, founded upon fear, and 
made to subserve the white man's power. We 
mean those which refer to the coloured popula- 
tion, the acts of the assembly. ^ far as the female 
is concerned, her virtue is not her own, neither 
socially nor lawfully. This our learned friend 
will not deny, in face of the statutes and city life 
as it is. 

We can forgive him through charity, charge 
his errors to that natural fault, local carelessness, 
and hope that he will become a good commoner, 
searching out the truths that surround his home, 
and use them for the grandeur of a pre-eminent 
name. Let us indulge the belief, that when he 
formed the thread of his divine work he had 
been studying Bishop Butler^ and became con- 
fused in comprehending the following passage : 
" It was taken for granted that Christianity was 
not so much as a subject for inquiry, but was at 
length discovered to be fictitious. And men 
treated it as if this were an agreed point among 
all people of discernment." 

Such Christianity is worthy of the protection 
of her chivalry, lest, like the "southern press," it 



38 Uncle Tomat Home. 

should die in the lap of her charity. It will die 
its own martyr ere it has truth for human ears. 

AYe leave Mr. P , his book, logic, and 

Christianity to the common sense of the common 
reader, and turn#b W. Gilmore Simms' " South- 
ern View." 

Mr. Simms is a friend and brother, a scholar, 
and a gentleman of noble parts. He has done 
many good things for the literature of his coun- 
try, and for the genius of his own State. But in 
keeping with the neglect of its sons, they have 
been slow to acknowledge it ; notwithstanding the 
beauty of his imagination was forced into their 
senses by many a " well said" notice. 

In his "Southern View" of Mrs. Stowe's book, 
he has left the facts strewed around his own door 
unnoticed, and rambled through distant States for 
evidence against a " Yankee woman's" book, with 
too many truths for his own port-folio. Coming 
forward to lead a forlorn hope, those who smile 
at his ingenuity will not follow him, because they 
know the ground-work of his efforts. A few may 
share in his goodness, for it is comprehensive and 
kindly to their supposed interests, spreading a 
balmy atmosphere over their gains — but the deep- 



UncleTomatHome. 39 

thinker wonders at his expectations. In the 
" wrath" of his surcharged brain, he has given to 
the '^ tvorld" a " Southern view," which, could the 
world read it, would give him fame beyond his 
"Yemassee" or "Norman Morris." He has dog- 
matized the language of a lady, whose genius -as 
a brilliant writer, at least, should have entitled 
her to common respect ; depicted her motives as 
infamous, obscene, and false to the core. Could we 
have held his hand, and restrained him from dipping 
his pen in that cess-pool of low tirade, he would 
not have tarnished his purpose while struggling 
to touch the reputation of a lady. He is the 
guardian of his own reputation, and if he has set 
\t on a needle's point for the pleasure of the few 
sind faithful, it needs no foreseeing efforts to dis- 
cern the consequences. 

We wish* it were otherwise — it is our earnest 
wish, for we have admired his amiable talent, 
noble nature, social qualities, and faithful motto. 
Pleased with the emanations of his mind, skimming 
the smoother surface of life, seldom ploughing 
into the rough soil, we read them with interest. 
The lack in the picture of life was made up in 
the suffusion of language — and language that had 



40 Uncle Tom at Home. 

meaning. It is upon these points that he has 
extended his comments on Mrs. Stowe's book, 
endeavouring to show her an inconsistent writer ; 
reviewing upon technicality instead of generality — 
upon point instead of prima facia construction. 
Let us say to those who read what we write, that 
when his congenial affections become quickened 
to a sense of the reality, his mild nature moving 
in its wonted sphere of contemplation, and chi- 
valry resumes its lustre, he will look around him, 
and upon this " Southern View" which he has 
given to the world ; and with pained feelings 
wish it back to his " Woodland home," to bury it 
beneath the unsold piles of his " Wigwam and 
Cabin." 

The reading of his '' view^'" its violating, invec- 
tive, sweeping disregard of material evidence, and 
struggling purpose, first called to our attention by 
a friend and admirer of his, prompted us to reply. 
In this we shall show that in his vain endeavours 
to smother the realities of secret-life in the South, 
he has played the unconscious fool with himself, 
ceased to respect his better feelings, and belied 
domestic wrong ; that he has wandered from his 
home intentionally, turned his back upon the things 



Uncle Tom at Home. 41 

•which belong to a 7i(?ve?- writer, for a purpose, and 
struggled to drag in false policy, laid the scalpel 
deeper at the root of a good master's interest than 
Mrs. Stowe has done. And why ? 

Because he has denied the truth which stands 
recorded in his own district, and given the world 
a ribald tirade, bearing on its face the strongest 
evidence of gross fnconsistency. That which denies 
the whole tenor of the book with one fell swoop, 
is the strongest evidence of an ultimate intention. 
The reader will detect it at a glance. How much 
better it would have been had he evinced more of 
Melancthon's loving nature, acted the part of a 
John Howard, going into his own city, and learn- 
ing the miseries that there exist. He would have 
imparted honest intention, character, earnestness, 
and an anxiety for her welfare ; perhaps reduced 
the number of five hundred guardsmen watching 
her fears. 

Our first impressions of the book were singu- 
larly difi*erent, and we cannot help referring to 
them in this instance. 

On its first appearance in Charleston, we were 
enjoying the contemplation of Southern politics 
and managerial life, their uncertainties and hope- 



42 Uncle Tom at Home. 

lessness. A little book which Mrs. Somebody 
had, a few had read, and everybody denounced as 
'' atvful,'' had come among us. It seemed like 
Babylon disentombed for some mighty advent— a 
cry of horror ascending to heaven in behalf of the 
down-trodden slave. That the whole "nigger 
kingdom" of the South had been killed, smothered, 
torn to pieces by bloodhounds, gtound up for bone 
manure ; children' dragged from mothers' breasts, 
and whole plantations turned into slaughter-houses, 
we fully expected; and yet nobody had read it. 
We had seen some bright pictures in the secret 
life of the institution; yet we were moved with 
anxiety for the book, and sent to the north for a 
copy. 

After a few days, a gentleman of the legal pro- 
fession, whose literary discrimination upon the 
true merits of a book stands second to none in 
that city, brought us a copy that a friend had lent 
him. " Have you read it ?" said we. ^'Yes." 
" Then what is your opinion of it ?" 

He answered us to the effect, that it was dif- 
ferent from what he anticipated ; written with ease 
and natural simplicity; defective in style ; rather 
of the Emerson school, with some of its scenes 



Uncle Tom at Home. 43 

rather highly coloured, probably for dramatic 
eflfect. " But read it, and let us have your opi- 
nion," said he. 

We read it carefully, and as we continued from 
chapter to chapter, became more and more inte- 
rested in it, for its naturalness, correct portrait- 
ure of characters, inimitable dialogue, the fresh- 
ness and life of its scenes, and the display of 
knowledge, and grasp of comprftiension peculiar 
to that species of Southern life, upon which the 
writer had founded her book. Forcibly struck 
with its redundant delineation, we said to ourself, 
" Here is a book displaying remarkable genius. Is 
it from the pen of a lady novelist, who seeks to 
please and dazzle the imagination ? Hardly. Her 
power has gone beyond that, showing an earnest- 
ness in a distinct cause, at variance with a novel- 
ists efforts. She has embodied the sentiments of 
life with a depth of research that will not fall dead 
on the echo — a picture of life as it is, that will go 
beyond a flying sketch for the parlour pleasures 
of the common reader. She has enlisted the in- 
telligent and practical ; and while they stand deve- 
loped in reality, those who would blunder through 
a common sentence to quibble at her small defects, 



44 Uncle Tom at Home. 

claiming it as the beauty of their criticism, may 
yet learn the power of truth from her lessons. 
There is even a beauty beyond this ; for in grouping 
her adjuncts together, she has clothed them with 
a pious sentiment, which even the sceptic must 
admire. To give divine truth its force upon the 
susceptible mind, a writer cannot find a more direct 
route than by contrasting the depravity of vice 
with the beauties of Christian love ; to do this, it 
becomes necessary to picture the coarse ruffian in 
his natural garb." 

We reviewed and compared its scenes and events 
— parallel ones flashed into our mind at once, and 
we recurred to them one by one, as we followed 
her in the thread of her narrative. " Uncle Tom" 
upon Legree's plantation seemed the worst feature. 
Here Mr. Simms dwells at length, endeavouring 
to establish the impossibility of such an occurrence. 
In order to correct his mistake we will point him 
to counterparts, in his own immediate neighbour- 
hood. We have seen many noble, generous, and 
affectionate traits in the negro character, evincing 
a hospitality and Christian forbearance worthy of 
higher consideration than that we had seen mani- 
fested by the chivalry. We looked about for a 



Uncle ToMAT Home. 45 

Legree, within the boundaries of South Caror 
lina — Uncle Toms being numerous — so that we 
could trace his deeds to the judicial records, where 
the proof would be undeniable. There was no oc- 
casion to go into " Georgia," " Virginia" or " Ten- 
nessee;" we found one of the same name close at 
hand, upon James Island^ S. 0. — and from thence 
we traced them in a circuit around the judicial cir- 
cuit of the State. These cases are established 
beyond mere topics of common conversation, and 
it is to them we propose to point Mr. Simms for 
the correction of his logical errors. 

Again we recurred to the book, considering its 
spirit and intention, and the motive of the writer. 
But for the life of us, could not come to such a 
conclusion as that of Mr. Simms. That it was self- 
ish, and intended to falsify the whole South, " fo- 
ment heart-burnings and unappeasable hatred be- 
tween brethren of a common country, the joint- 
heirs of that country's glory — to sow, in this 
blooming garden of freedom," &c. &c.* * * * 

We viewed it in a different light, found her re- 
flections replete with good feeling for the South- 
erner, and pointing with unmistakable aim to au- 
tocratic customs and laws, external grievances, 



46 Uncle TomatHome. 

internal dangers, and doctrines strictly at variance 
with true Republicanism. No man can reason 
upon the laws of nature, and say that deep griev- 
ances cannot exist in an institution based upon 
the principle of one man being the property-holder 
of another. Admitting the property-holder be high- 
born, the unnatural power disposes his feelings in 
the aggregate, opens a confused system of society, 
spreads tyrannical vanity, strengthens the pas- 
sions, and destroys the natural affections. It 
gives him the pleasure of his will, surrounds him 
with circumstances that no law can govern, making 
him the absolute monster of his own domicile. In 
this state of things there must naturally be gross 
wrongs, and if the local powers overlook them it 
becomes those who are enlisted in the good of a 
common cause to point them out. This is the in- 
tention of Mrs. Stowe's book ; and the object, aim- 
ing to correct, claims its rights— notwithstanding 
Mr. Simms' dictum to the contrary. And in- 
stead of being an "agreeable Cicerone," she ha& 
breathed a soul of fervor into her cause, showing 
an interest, deep and fervent, in humanity's good"^ 
and entitling her to the name of a good labourer 
in the field. 



Uncle ToMAT Home. 47 

Mr. Simms has branded her as " a woman" with 
an avaricious object only. Chivalry displays its 
weak points in such a charge, and establishes a 
province of misgiving. Had it come from a low- 
bred man, destitute of education, an excuse might 
have been tolerated, but we cannot honour Mr. 
Simms with the same plea. That feeling and libe- 
rality which should characterise fellow-workers of 
the same art, had Mr. Simms shown, would have 
redounded to his credit, and governed him in that 
common respect due to the genius of a brilliant 
writer — much less a lady. Had he lived in an 
atmosphere where moral character and the genius 
of literature was properly appreciated, or where 
his own genius was respected, he would not volun- 
tarily cast himself into a gulf of errors, reproach- 
ing when praise was deserved. His feelings would 
have been saved from the world's review, and him- 
self placed in a different position to that of hand- 
fellow in a beaureaucratic wrong. He would have 
known more of Mrs. Stowe's position ; compared 
the higher classes of society at the North with that 
hyper-aristocratical society of his own State — 
remembering the text-book of etiquette before ac- 
cusing a lady in the highest moral walks of life, 
with "blasphemous" intentions. 



48 Uncle Tom at Ho^ie. 

In again recurring to the book and its appen- 
dix ; "ha's she doffed her modest robes and been 
with us ; done as we have done ; sat beside the 
slave-dealer — travelled with him on steamboats 
and railroads — met him on the highway with his 
gang chained in iron-fellowship — listened to his 
self-appraised humanity rebutted by acts of uncon- 
scious brutality — heard him disclose, with sang- 
froid shrewdness, the revolting system of kis traf- 
fic, and awaiting the result, guiding his feeling 
into the excitement of liis history ? Has she stood 
with us, studying their native dialect with delight, 
while they were enjoying the ecstacy of a happy 
moment, — watched the dwindling fortunes of the 
noble-hearted Southerner, and detesting the brute 
avarice of his grasping broker V She has given us 
all these things with perfection, tracing the obliga- 
tions of the one, and filling the fortunes of the other 
"with a truth that no honest Southerner can deny. 
And she has ferreted out abuses — shown the intri- 
cate workings of the institution, and the mockery 
of laws made to govern it, with unexceptionable 
correctness. Had she watched the work-house 
system of Charleston, and suffered in its prison, 
or gone into its poor-house, and seen the rough ends 
of human nature in their worst wretchedness, she 



Uncle Tom at Home. 4d 

could not have delineated them with more truth- 
fulness. 

That this species of mendacity stalks abroad 
unrestrained in the "queen city" of the sunny 
South, none will deny. And with a knowledge 
of them, we gave our opinion of the book then, 
as freely and fully as we would now, in Boston 
or New York. We pointed our friend to instances 
well known to himself, many of which had fur- 
nished subjects for better comments ; the evidence 
was satisfactory, because it was at Jiome, and 
could not be denied in the face of domestic know- 
ledge. Here exists a great wrong on the part of 
Southerners, known as good masters. They tell 
you they know their interests are promoted by the 
proper treatment of their slaves, acknowledge the 
existence of these grievances, comment upon them, 
and regret the master's mendacity — and while neg- 
lecting to correct them, treasure an inveterate ha- 
tred against the voice that dare speak from abroad. 
After a few days, we received a copy from the 
North, accompanied by a note, requesting our 
opinion of its merits, which we gave in a letter 
dated " Charleston, S. C, July 26, 1852." The 
following paragraphs refer to the book : 
4 



50 Uncle Tom at Home. 

" I have read it with an attentive interest. 
' What is your opinion of it ?' you ask. Know- 
ing my opinions on the subject of slavery, and 
the embodiment of those principles which I have 
so long supported, in favour of that peculiar 
institution, you may have prepared your mind for 
an indirect answer. This my consciousness of 
its truth would not allow in the present instance. 
The book is a truthful picture of such a life, with 
the dark outlines strongly portrayed; the lile, 
characteristics, grotesque incidents — and the dia- 
logue is life itself reduced to paper by an uncom- 
mon hand.''* * * * * 

" In her appendix she evades the question — 
whether it is founded upon actual scenes or the 
fiction of imagination — but says there are many 
counterparts, &c. &c. In this she is correct 
beyond a doubt. Had she changed the picture 

of Legree on Red river for that of Thomas L e 

on James Island, South Carolina, she could not 
have drawn a more admirable portrait. I am led 
to question whether she had not some knowledge 
of this * * * * % as he is known to be, 
and made the transposition for effect." * * * 

" My position, in connection with an extreme 



Uncle Tom AT Home. 51 

party, would constitute a restraint to the full 
expression of my feelings against many bad 
effects of the institution. I have studied slavery 
in all its different phases— more than many have 
supposed, been thrown in contact with the negro 
in different parts of the world, and made it my 
aim to study his nature, as far as my limited 
abilities would give me light ; and whatever my 
opinions may have been they were based upon 
honest conviction." 

"An institution which now holds the great 
and most momentous question of our federal well- 
being, should be approached with great care. 
Southerners should seek out their own interests, 
ask themselves what they are, who are affecting 
them — and if bad laws do not make had power ? 
They should inquire if they were safe under such 
power, let right and justice govern, and act to 
restrain the 'bad master' who renders their 
defence unsafe. They see bad men coming 
among them, and abusing the rights which the 
law gives them ; and they witness the disgrace 
of a local traffic, unblushing in its publicity, and 
more than foreign, because it is supported by a 
higher order of civilized life. And they look 



52 Uncle Tom AT Home. 

upon Northerners as foes, yet never seek the best 
protection against Uhe enemy.' The Carolinian 
seems to care little for these things ; he views the 
things around him as natural transcendents, 
enjoys his pleasurable coldness — making force 
right, military importance justice, lovingly and 
thoughtfully resting the spell of his fortunes upon 
the halo of glorious uncertainty. Many bless 
God for their good fortune in " niggers," thank 
him for making them pious Christians, and 
beseech him for good returns of the staple." * * * 
" He has grown up in a mental right to his own 
exclusive position, looking upon everything that 
is bemeaning to the slave as just and proper. He is 
excusable to a certain degree, in this sense ; for 
that which he has been taught from his childhood 
has become habitual in his nature, founding his 
principles of right. With regard to the law, we 
have only to watch its effects upon the object to 
show the result, which is despairing in the worst 
degree. At best it is difficult to carry out the in- 
tention of a law against the unyielding force of 
popular sentiment ; and here, in South Carolina, 
there is as much consistency in carrying into ef- 
fect laws made to protect the slave, as there is in 



Uncle Tom AT Home. 53 

the comic-mockery of a farce-player. It is one 
thing if I beat your slave, and quite another if I 
beat my own. Thus we find the curse of slavery 
in the unlimited power of the master, constituted 
in him by the blank letter of the law, which mocks 
the bondman's rights. What legislative act, based 
upon the construction of self-protection for the 
very men who contemplate that act, though their 
policy be to show amelioration, can be enforced 
when the object of legislation is held as the bond 
property of the legislator ? We have seen this in- 
teresting and very harmless mimicry judicially 
illustrated ; not so forcibly in Georgia, for there 
the slave is better cared for — but in South Caro- 
lina." * * * * 

" Instituting a law for the amelioration of pro- 
perty would seem an absurdity to many, but we 
must not allow ourselves to construe it in a figura- 
tive sense, dealing with the practical as it deserves, 
and judging the issue. What we have witnessed 
in this sense, makes us cast it to the winds, as un- 
worthy the people who point you to it, as they 
would to the beautiful folds of a rich flower." 

" In the force of law the slave has no rights. It 
distrains him as the governed, holding him in an 



54 U N C L E T M AT H M E . 

abject, menial, unpopular position — without caste, 
and without access to justice. The power of the 
minority fears the knowledge of the majority, and 
flatters with the tongue, while it seeks to crush 
the mental being of the slave. We speak of the 
institution separate from any natural law, as it is 
founded upon property right. Laws are strange 
things in South Carolina; very ancient, much 
honoured in the breach — seemingly made for the 
particular advantages of an immense school of 
professional point-makevs. Every tenacious pre- 
judice is set forth to protect a certain interest ; 
and while justice quails under the strength of truth, 
an under-current is working to consolidate power 
against a substantive which it makes the weaker 
vessel. The slave works at virtuous toil, while the 
master grasps for power to keep him there, turning 
his back upon justice, and making tyranny his 
protector." * * * * 

" Philanthropy dare not raise its voice at home, 
because it is unpopular, and repugnant to the 
refined ear. Nor can the voice of the governed 
be heard, for nine-tenths of the suffering is felt 

beyond the centered domain of the judiciary 

allowing that the judiciary would regard them. 



Uncle Tom at Home. 55 

The negro knows this, feels his dependence, la- 
bours with strength of body against the pangs of 
instinctive injustice, yet dreads to make an appeal 
for fear of something more cruel. * * Do 
not infer from my remarks that I am seeking con- 
solation for the abolitionists — such is not my in- 
tention. Southerners want more workers in black 
humanity, and more of something else to give an 
honest tone to their loud and long-sounding strains 
of liberty. Cuban emancipation and filibustering 
should begin at home, and those who deny their 
part in the counterplot, should not act ordnance 
master to the for ay,' ^ 

" In this State, he is an extra good master who 
gives bacon to his slaves, measuring his ration at 
a peck of corn per week. Humanity calls for 
something to correct this, and with it to enforce 
his proper raiment, upon the same principle that 
it is enforced in Alabama. It is the good mas- 
ter's interest, and he should look to it. Mrs. 
Stowe has pointed to it directly." 

" Strangers may live years in the South, pass 
from town to town, in the every-day pursuits — 
make casual observations, and yet see but the 
* polished side ' of slavery. It has been different 



56 Uncle Tom at Home. 

with me — cast where I saw its miseries tested hy 
the most stringent rule of law, and witnessing the 
coarse mendacity of the slave-trader and ^ mer- 
chant ' — the sorrows of the enslaved — its effects 
upon the social and agricultural well-being of the 
country, I have come to a clearly defined conclu- 
sion — it is wrong ! wasting the energies of one, 
and the life of the other. With these feelings I 
am constrained to do justice to Mrs. Stowe's 
book, which I consider must have been written 
by one thoroughly acquainted with the subject. 
The character of Haley, the bankrupt master in 
Kentucky, the New Orleans merchant, and the 
subject of her principal scenes, are every -day 
occurrences in this State, and I would almost say, 
our city. Editors may denounce it as false, and 
for its dramatic effects as much as they please — 
the tale is true ! and the occurrences which have 
taken place in this State form a picture even 
more glaring." * * * * 

This is from the letter we wrote at that time, 
before the whirlwind of excitement was created 
about this book, or Southern foets and novelists 
had taken up their pens to denounce it. 

Now, Mr. Simms, what does this book teach ? 



Uncle Tom at Home. 57 

Is it intended as an incendiary missile, or a messen- 
ger to teach you the good of your own people ? 

It teaches that there are natural defects in 
all societies ; extant grievances, wrongs, and suf- 
fering produced by the different shades of mate- 
rial nature ; but that the moral chords may be 
strengthened and elevated by proper government. 
That when law and government make distinct clas- 
sifications in the social being, giving to one distinct 
class power to sink another into insignificance, 
these grievances, according to natural laws, be- 
come greater, and deeper settled in the body poli- 
tic of a State or Nation. The only question, then, 
is the effect — which the politician may show by 
comparative results. The author has pointed out 
the evils with a power and truthfulness that can- 
not be mistaken ; and she has left the work for 
those whose province it is to trace it further. 

There are defects in the book — if defects we 
may call them ; but they are all in favour of the 
good master and generous Southerner. The 
moral diseases — the indulgences — the liberties 
and freedom of conversation with a good master 
— their tricks played with Haley, and the faith- 
ful Tom and his fortitude — old aunty in her cabin 



58 Uncle Tom at Home. 

— the mischievous quaintness of Sam, are all in 
favour of the Southerner ! The others point out 
to him where the evils exist, leaving it t'q, his own 
judgment to say whether it is not right, and for 
his own interests, to correct them. 

When wars, migrations, and foreign conquests 
are going on in a distant country, we feel for the 
oppressed, cheer them in the good cause, and 
leap beyond the power of our government, that 
we may be coadjutors in building the mighty edi- 
fice of sovereign democracy. There is cause for 
this ! It is our natural love of liberty ! We lend 
a helping hand to the nation that rises up from 
barbarism to seek civilization and usefulness ; and 
we applaud the genius that leads it onward. When 
Dickens dips his pen into the cess-pool of vice, and 
pictures the dark miseries of life in the metropolis 
of his own England, we are in ecstacies at his won- 
derful delineation — applaud his mighty genius — 
devour his books as if they were angels' gifts to 
warm our precious hearts — and welcome him to 
our country with a folly that made him call us 
popular fools. 

. Dickens has one line and Mrs. Stowe another 
— but Dickens, though we admit him a wonderful 



Uncle Tom at Home. 59 

delineator, never pictured life so natural to char- 
acter as Mrs. Stowe has done. This Mr. Simms 
can find out, if he does not already know, without 
going many miles from his Woodland Cottage. 
Why has she called forth these Southern denunci- 
ations and epithets ? Has she merited them, in- 
stead of the same acclamations of praise that her 
countrymen have bestowed upon foreign writers 
of less merit ? Are we to question her motive 
and position as a lady, because she has given us 
the beauty of her genius upon unpopular themes ? 
The calm view of the Western world will say 
not! 

It is because this '^Yankee Woynan's'' little 
book has disembodied truths that are sectionally 
uncomfortable, and nowhere more so than in South 
Carolina. Her historians, poets, and play wri- 
ters may attempt to repel them ; but their attempts 
will fall harmless at their feet. 

Now, Mr. Simms, - we will take your review : 
you must go with us into the garden of your 
own labours — touch not the flowers that adorn the 
arbour — come within, and let us turn over, and 
pull up the rank weeds that grow in the centre. 
You open by saying, ^' Macaulay, in his opening 



60 Uncle Tom at Home. 

paragraph of his essay on the life of Addison, 
discusses the question, whether lady authors should 
■jY should not be dealt with according to strict 
critical justice. The gallant reviewer gives as 
his opinion, that while lady writers should not be 
permitted to teach ' inaccurate history or unsound 
philosophy' with impunity, it were well that cri- 
tics should so far recognize the immunities of the 
sex as to blunt the edge of their severity." 

Had Mr. Simms so far recognized this text as 
to follow its example, he would have given a na- 
tional tone to his review, worthy of himself, and 
free from that virulence which marks its seclusive 
mania. He could very easily have gone a few 
paragraphs farther, and given his readers a sen- 
tence from that learned reviewer, differently con- 
structed, and fully establishing Mrs. Stowe's rights 
upon the subject-matter of her book. The plain 
reasoning of Macaulay established conclusions too 
clear for Mr. Simms' liberality; and failing to 
throw a shadow of misconstruction over them, he 
has gratified his feelings with the following : 

" But we beg to make a distinction between 
ladt/ writers and female writers.'' The italics are 
3Ir, Simms'. " We could not find it in our heart 



Uncle Tom at Home. 61 

to visit the dullness or ignorance of a well-meaning 
lady with the vigorous discipline which it is neces- 
sary to inflict upon male dunces and blockheads. 
But when a writer of the softer sex manifests, in 
her productions, a shameless disregard of truth, 
and of those amenities which so peculiarly belong 
to her sphere of life, we hold that she has forfeited 
the claim to be considered a lady, and with that 
claim all exemption from the utmost stringency 
of critical punishment." 

He has been pleased to class Mrs. Stowe with 
the "Thalestris of Billingsgate," hurling coarse 
speech, coarse oaths, and unwomanly blows at 
whomsoever she chooses to assail. This, however, 
is modestly, and very harmlessly, blended with a 
suspending clause in the next chapter. We could 
forgive a less experienced writer, or the aspirant 
seeking the congenial conquest of his own mind ; 
but in the exercise of such language, Mr. Simms 
has openly violated the object of a reviewer, by 
prefacing it with the clearly conceivable purpose 
of his feelings. We shall not draw upon learned 
authorities abroad, but confine ourselves to those 
of South Carolina — proofs of social result, stand- 
ing on the undeniable judicial records. 



62 Uncle Tom at Home. 

But we will leave this language of a French wash- 
erwoman, and apologize for Mr. Simms through 
our knowledge of the texture of excited chivalry, 
leaving our readers to draw their conclusions of 
Mrs. Stowe as an author, and W. Gilmore Simms, 
Esq., as a reviewer. 

" She is not a Joan of Arc ; she is not a fish- 
woman.* She is something less noble than the 
Gallic heroine ; she is certainly a much more re- 
fined person than the virago of the Thames." 

This is couched in a Don Caesar-zsA style. This 
is the rectified conversion of a poet's mind in a 
happy state. 

Let us proceed. We shall come to the material 
points in their order, and beg the reader to fol- 
low us. 

In speaking of her dramatic talent, and the 
manner in which she might have employed it to a 
legitimate purpose, he says : 

" But she has chosen to employ her pen for pui*- 
poses of a less worthy nature. She has volunteered 
ofiiciously to intermeddle with things which concern 
her not — to libel and villify a people from among 
whom have gone forth some of the noblest men 

* Anglice, " fish-fags." 



Uncle Tom at Home. 63 

that have adorned the race — to foment heart- 
burnings and unpleasant hatred between brethren 
of a common country, the joint heirs of that coun- 
try's glory." 

This is a common question for a common coun- 
try to decide. When that fascination of state 
policy, which denies humanity its rights, shall have 
died away, and established principles justly ac- 
knowledged, Mr. Simms will see his error. That 
the book invites itself to the attention of the gene- 
ral readers of his own State, is proof sufficient. 
If Mrs. Stowe had incited her countrywomen to 
war upon South Carolina, for some outrage com- 
mitted against a foreign nation — for instance, fili- 
bustering — then the plea of intermeddling might 
have had plausibility. This she has not done; 
and the subject being one afiecting the common 
interests, national character, and general humanity 
of her common country, hence her right. The 
difference which Mr. Simms makes upon usage or 
custom, between the petticoat citizen and the poet 
citizen, are matters which we cannot enter into, 
and will leave for the tenacious depths of his own 
mind. 

Had he viewed the book with that depth of 



64 Uncle Tom AT Home. 

thought and polish of mind which he possesses in 
his calmer mood, he would have discovered the 
spirit of its intention — drawn from subjects of 
common conversation and observation — truths to 
compare with it, and saved himself from a gross 
charge against his own knowledge. He would 
have reviewed upon principle ; acknowledged that 
the book contained subjects for examination, affect- 
ing the political interests of the State, person and 
property, and moral safety, all inviting their cool 
consideration. 

Mr. Simms again follows with a suspending 
clause. He says: "But whatever her designs 
may have been, it is very certain that she has 
shockingly traduced the slave-holdiDg society of 
the United States, and we desire to be understood 
as acting entirely on the defensive, when we pro- 
ceed to expose the miserable misrepresentations 
of her story. * * ^^ 

"And in the very torrent of our wrath, (while 
declining to * carry the war into Africa,') to ac- 
quKe and beget a temperance which may give it 
smoothness." 

We must answer this by first asking some ques- 
tions. Did you ever, like John Howard, watch the 



Uncle Tom AT Home, 65 

secret character of your police — go into the mis- 
erable dens, in and around your city, where pov- 
erty and decaying wretchedness sits imploring on 
the door-sill ? Have you darkened the iron por- 
tals of your "time-honored jail," to relieve the 
distressed and persecuted, or the descendants of 
those whose name you have emblazoned in his- 
tory — inquired its regime, and asked the hungry 
mortals wJio starved them at the expense of the 
State ? Scenes for your book-making are there 
— go and search them out — compare them with 
Mrs. Stowe's book, and acknowledge its truths. 
Have you entered that externally-beautiful, semi- 
gothic edifice, with its watch-towers and parapets, 
like a European castle, looming above the humble 
dwellings around it — and marked by the singular 
cognomen of Hutchinson's folly ? Or have you, 
like many others, satisfied yourself with the daz- 
zling skill of the artizan, worked around its spa- 
cious portals ? You would have found it a grand 
municipal slave pen, with beauty without and mis- 
ery within, and learned from its keeper facts 
pictured in Mrs. Stowe's book. 

Had you turned the corner of your great bank- 
ing institutions, and gone into State street, you 
5 



66 Uncle Tom AT Home. 

would have seen the link of money and misery. 
The slave-trader's fortunes are there, and the im- 
portance of his traffic held forth in unblushing 
boldness. His mode is no common thing, and he 
will point you to the samples that surround his 
door at noon-day, oflfering you fine bargains in 
imps and aged — tell you how shrewd he was in 
getting them through a mortgage — what he means 
to do with the mother — fat the "old feller," make 
him *' prime No. 1," and ship him — how much 
'' dare'' he'll make on*' that gal" — who wants 
t'other for a mistress, what likely proportions 
she's got — how the boys will make " tip-top field 
hands " — what titles he can give, bonds if required, 
and how he will arrange the separation without 
the least trouble. This is a great thoroughfare, 
and great things are transacted in it, " as well in 
money as niggers." Some of these establish- 
ments have pens in front, and high fences moun- 
ted with cutting glass and dangerous spikes, to 
challenge egress ; others have brilliant fronts, with 
fine cushioned chairs, and walnut polished desks, 
to close a view of their pen in the rear. But let 
us pass these, and go to that rookery of sorrow 
at the corner of State and Chalmers' street — we 



Uncle Tom at Home. 67 

mean that of Norman Gadsden; it is more in 
keeping -with the misery of his trade, and if he 
does deny his identity when abroad, he takes 
pleasure in disclosing his strict rule of business 
when at home. He will show us his pigeon-holes 
for human purposes — disclose the history of his 
fortunes — tell us how he made his million ; and 
from it you can draw a picture, in contrast with 
which Mrs. Stowe's is but a shadow. There is no 
trouble in doing these things, so long as you are in 
the confidence. 

Have you gone into the " by-ways," to learn the 
sanctioned licentiousness that slavery has entailed 
upon the lower classes of your society ? You would 
then find intermixtures most unnatural, and cus- 
tom granting it no harm; inconsistent in the 
breach, and very unlawful in the abstract ; grant- 
ing harmony and fellowship to constituent parts 
of society, and rejecting divine interposition ; vir- 
tually granting a caveat to licentiousness, repu- 
diating moral issue, and condemning the preroga- 
tive right of the divine will. 

In conclusion, let us ask Mr. Simms if he has 
not travelled on steamboats, railroads, and post- 
roads, when the travelling trader was making up 



68 Uncle Tom AT Home. 

his gang, enumerating his number of " head,'' 
their diflferent qualities, the different portions of 
"prime fellows," the "worked-down ones," the 
work in them, the feed necessary to improve their 
condition before he got to market, and witnessed 
the very embodiment of Mrs. Stowe's book ? 

If he say not, we can only say it seems strange 
that they were brought to our notice as every-day 
occurrences the first season we spent in Charles- 
ton. We should not pretend to class our power 
of observation with his ; and yet he tells us he has 
never seen them, with as much complacency as if 
he were born to overlook them. There is some- 
thing in this beyond our comprehension. If he 
has chosen to act the statesman's part, and sit in 
the comforts of his " Woodland home" discussing 
those all-absorbing questions of secession, suppers, 
and "belly-theologies," instead of tracing out the 
potent evils and secret life of his own district, to 
fill his pages with depth of character, he can hardly 
claim to be excused. His neglect has given Mrs. 
Stowe a right to enter the field, and he must not 
blaspheme against her labours, for they have only 
disentombed the things which he should have given 
us in his " Wigivam and Cabin.'' If he had been 



Uncle Tom at Home. . 69 

up and doing the freshness of nature instead of 
the obscenity of character would have decorated 
his ^' Wigwam" and his "Golden Christmas," 
something beyond the shadow of a golden dream, 
saving his invention, and doing credit to his origi- 
nality. 

We trust Mr. Simms will not charge us with 
officiousness, when we point him to domestic coun- 
terparts of Mrs. Stowe's book, which, having 
transpired near his own home, he cannot mistake 
them. In doing this we shall select a few princi- 
pal ones, and touch them as lightly as possible, 
first noticing how negroes are brought into trouble. 

The police system, based upon espionage, gives 
its officers power to exert their ingenuity in the 
tricks of office to extort fees ; it is brought to bear 
upon the poor white as well as the black, though 
with more stringency upon the latter. None will 
deny this, because it is carried out against party 
comment. This is carried out by the power of 
an elective franchise conducted upon the worst 
relics of an English system, and swayed by 
money-power. The secret workings and traps to 
get negroes into trouble for the purpose of ex- 
torting a fee, has been carried on with shameless 



70 .Uncle Tom at Home. 

disregard for many years, and it only requires a 
little attention on the part of Mr. Simms to 
become acquainted with its history — common con- 
versation in Charleston will disclose it. If he 
requires more particular evidence, we will point 
him to G. W. Reynold's speech at Hibernian 
Hall, and a writer in the " Charleston Courier," 
signing himself a "responsible citizen, Septem- 
ber — , 1852." We will cite two or three pas- 
sages from the WTiter's article, which display a 
keen knowledge of the glaring practices. Speak- 
ing of the men who abuse slaves, and the demo- 
ralizing traffic of liquor sellers, «&c. &c., he says : 
" At no period has its influence upon our slave 
population been more palpable or more danger- 
ous. At no period has the municipal adminis- 
tration been so wilfully blind to these corrupt 
practices, or so lenient and forgiving when such 
practices are exposed. The class to which we 
refer, are unswerving supporters of God. * * *" 
Considering the excitable character of society, 
these exceptions of independence speak volumes. 
We give them because Mr. Simms has dwelt at 
length upon a particular force of law, which we 
contend has little to do with justice in South 



UncleTomatHome. . 71 

Carolina. They are themes which Mrs. Stowe 
has entirely overlooked, which despoil the negro, 
and bring him to a worse state of suffering than 
she has depicted. The negro is corrupted by 
rum-sellers, made a " bad nigger," neglecting the 
commands of his master, who in turn inflicts the 
severest punishment, while the law, instead of 
being enforced, remains an accommodating me- 
dium for the malefactor. No dealer can sell liquor 
to a negro unless he have an order from a white 
man, without violating the law ; but to continue 
his avaricious purpose he makes it a matter of 
dollars and cents with the police-man, who has 
an ultimate object — gets pay for arresting and 
punishing the negro, and reaps a double interest. 
Common sense can trace this to a defective sys- 
tem, which is destroying the social condition of 
the lower classes. Again the writer says, ^^ We 
have at this moment in our possession a certificate 
from a citizen, sworn to before Mr, Griles, the 
magistrate, declaring that he, the deponent, 

heard one of the city police officers (S ) 

make a demand for money upon one of these 
shop-keepers, and promised that if he would pay 
him five dollars at stated intervals ' 7ione of the 
police officers would trouble him.' " 



72 Uncle Tom AT Home. 

Mrs. Stowe has only aimed here^ in passages 
•u-liere slie attempts to show the standard of mo-, 
rality. 

We have seen fifty cases. For Mr. Simms' bene- 
fit, see Oland vs. State of South Carolina, who paid 
police ofiicers one hundred and forty dollars in the 
space of six months for allowing him to violate the 
statutes; and because he refused to pay an exorbi- 
tant sum to continue was accommodated with a 
short residence in jail, to mock at justice. Again, 
we have seen an officer take two dollars from a 
negro to spare him from the handcuffs, while he 
was committing him to jail, and reported it to a 
judicial magistrate. We have heard a guardman, 
after hell-ring, call a negro from the limits of his 
master's gate, on a pretext of showing him some- 
thing — arrest him, and extort a dollar from him, 
then pass into a rum shop and drink with his com- 
rade. Could anything be more despicable ? and 
yet the negro's testimony is black, consequently 
invalid, and he must be dragged to the guard- 
house, and paddled at the work-house in the morn- 
ing, unless his master appears for him and puts 
dow^n the fee. This reverts to another difficulty 
between the slave and his master ; fur in nine 



Uncle Tom AT Home. 73 

cases out of ten the Master will credit the state- 
^ment of the guardman in preference to the slave's 
explanation of circumstances. 

Let us give a ridiculous instance — a wealthy, 
but not very temperate gentleman, had become 
jolUly fuddled^ and strayed from his domestic af- 
fections on a rainy night. His better half became 
alarmed and despatched Jake, (pass in hand,) who 
found his lord and master in very comfortable 
quarters, about twelve o'clock at night. After 
considerable persuasion, he agreed to leave the 
denizens and accompany Jahe to his happy home. 
They had not gone far before it was evident Jahe 
had a .task in hand, for his lord could neither 
keep an upright, get his sea-legs, nor navigate the 
uprising breakers of the side-walk. In a word, 
he was respectably " done gone.'' Jake had played 
tricks on " Massa fo'h, an know'd 'is natur like a 
book ;" but he was faithful in an emergency, and 
at length shouldered Massa. It rained "like guns," 
and Massa was big and heavy. After carrying 
him to the corner of King and Market streets, he 
was "ou^cZ/t?," and compelled to drop him on the 
side-walk. Here he remained for some minutes 
watching the toddled cares of his master. The 



74 Uncle Tom at Home. 

guardman in his round, found Jake attempting 
another tug at '^ done gone Massa," and instead 
of assisting to got Massa home, demanded his 
pass. 

Jake had lost his pass, and his story, being black, 
was useless, even with the strength of circumstances, 
and he was dragged off to the lock-up. The guard- 
man returned to the storm-stayed Master, and re- 
cognising him as a scion of wealth, took him home. 
And while Massa was taking long comfort in the 
morning, Jake was getting his paddles at the work- 
house. The trounsing did not stop here, for the 
guardman, who notified in the morning, reported 
adverse to Jake's fidelity, stating that he was 
picked up some distance from home in a state of 
inebriation himself. The statement was white, 
consequently valid and sufficient; and to punish 
such mischievous tricks, Massa just gave Jake a 
" couple a dozen" real stingers with the family 
cow-hide. 

The artifices resorted to are innumerable, dis- 
torting his feelings, and violating his rights. This 
arises from the construction and bad administra- 
tion of laws which reduce the negro to an abject 
condition, where he must bear the burden of all 



Uncle Tom at Home. 75 

their defects. Mrs. Stowe has shown this with 
Tivid effect, and pointed it out on a grand scale. 

These are truths in full flower in Mr. Simms* 
own "blooming garden of freedom," untouched by 
himself, but cultivated by Mrs. Stowe. 

As we continue we shall show that this great 
foundation of law, upon which Mr. Simms has built 
his " Southern view," is unsound; and that there 
is a wide difference between the statute existence 
of law and the administration of justice. We shall 
show him that a poor man's justice is a poor affair 
in South Carolina — that purse, power, and point 
of position have much to do in withholding the 
ends of justice — that those antiquated relics of 
England's younger days are ill-adapted to the pro- 
gress of civilization, complex, uncertain, burden- 
ing justice, and oppressing the poor. That they 
shield unmanliness, make the privileged citizen a 
positive and the other a negative being, giving one 
man power to exercise his vindictive feelings upon 
another. This done, we shall leave the reader to 
judge what the position of the negro, who is held 
as property in the estimation of law and custom, 
must be ; and what he has to expect from Mr. 
Simms' sovereign law. 



76 Uncle Tom at Home. 

In answer to his remarks on the miserable con- 
dition of the poor in Northern cities, we will 
refer him to a few incidents, forming parts of what 
came under our observation in liis own city ; and 
if he had gone with us into those miserable shel- 
ters we have spoken of, he would have found many 
such. 

1st. A young man from the North, failing to 
procure work, and out of money, was driven from 
house to house without friends ; he became sick, 
and would have died in the street, but for the 
timely sympathy of a poor negro woman, who gave 
him a shelter under her roof — nursed him, and 
shared her coarse meal with him, and when he re- 
covered, her husband procured him a passage to 
his native State. He found neither hospitality 
nor friendship among those who make it their 
loudest boast. But true kindness awaited him 
under that humble shelter, and a friend that, as a 
last token, bore his trunk to the vessel upon his 
head, and bid him a friendly adieu, asking no 
other recompense than that which Heaven can give. 
That young man now holds a respectable position 
at the North, and has rewarded the kindness of his 
'^ nigger'' friends. 



Uncle Tom at Home. 77 

2d. A poor artist, with a wife and two small 
children, living in a desolate room, reduced by 
sickness and want of employment to the worst 
stage of suiFering necessity — his wife appealing at 
aristocratic doors for charity, and turned away 
with a cold repulse — going to a prison and begging 
a loaf of bread for her suffering children ; and at 
length driven to crime. And while in this mise- 
rable condition, an officer entered with a " distress 
warrant ;" and to make the group more pitiable, 
dragged off their bed and a few chairs. This is not 
law, but a species of tolerated injustice, practised 
every day by the very servitors of the law. For 
evidence of this, we can refer him to the generous 
magistrate who saved their effects from " a consta- 
ble's sale in the market" — not to satisfy a rich 
landlord, but to eke out a fee. But it is not ended 
here. To crown the point of hospitality, when he 
recovered, and appealed to the commissioners of 
the poor — not for admittance into the poor-house, 
for that is considered a hospitality worthy of 
lengthy consideration — but for immediate relief. 
And after waiting nearly ten days, passing through 
resolves and re-resolves, he was granted a few dol- 
lars, with a provision that it be toward his passage- 



78 Uncle Tom AT Home. 

money to carry him beyond the limits of the State, 
which it was stipulated he should leave at once. 

We have gone into his own happy State — his 
^^ blooming garden of freedom^' — to point him to 
things that he has neglected ; while saying that 
they could not exist there, he has pointed us to 
the North for objects of misery. We witnessed a 
worse state of wretchedness among the poor whites 
in Charleston, than could exist at the North — 
things discreditable to an opulent public, and 
which Mr. Simms has merited censure for over- 
looking. 

3d. A man whose name is familiar to Mr. Simms, 
and who once enjoyed an affluent style of living — 
dying a besotted death in a filthy chamber in King 
street, without a friend to raise a hand for him ; 
and two strangers taking from their meagre pockets 
to minister to his last suffering. Look to these 
things, Mr. Simms : there is more distress in your 
voluptuous city than you are aware of. Trace it 
to its cause, and institute a remedy ; it should not 
be tolerated in a small population like yours. 

4th. With reference to another question, if Mr. 
Simms had gone to the jail, he would have found 
truths occupying a large space in Mrs. Stowe's 



Uncle Tom at Home. T9 

book. He would have found that establishment 
used for various purposes not consonant with the 
law. He would have seen suffering and oppres- 
sion in all its various shades ; the petty tyranny 
of magistrates, abuse of power, and violation of 
justice in its worst form. He would have found 
it turned into a house of peculation for the inte- 
rests of a modern Shylock, who speculates upon 
the hunger of human being. How is this ? 

The act of the Georgia legislature provides 
forty-four cents a day for the maintenance of 
prisoners in jail awaiting trial, &c. &c., with a 
stipend regulating the food in her penitentiary. 
This, so far as our observation has gone, is car- 
ried out in accordance with the act, and the jail 
in Savannah being a municipal institution, is 
regulated by the city authorities. In South Caro- 
lina it is different, the legislature providing only 
thirty cents a day, with a stipend in regard to 
the quality of bread and beef. This if for the 
white man, eighteen cents being allowed for the 
negro, who receives his amount in hominy. Thus 
the difference between a black appetite and a 
hungry white man. Even this small allowance, 
were it carried out in accordance with the law, 



80 Uncle Tom at Home. 

miglit appease the demands of hunger ; but this 
is not the case. Charleston being blessed with 
two sheriffs, the city and county sheriff, there 
exists an uncertain question of right to the spoils, 
very similar to that which her people hold upon 
State sovereignty and federal power. But the 
institution belonging to the State — and having no 
'' penitentiaries ' — is held by the county sheriff 
as in times of old, and he constituted lord war- 
den over the whole. Thus it stands, a monument 
of peculation for those whom the law has cm- 
powered — and custom has sanctioned it as a right. 
An incurious public look upon those who get into 
such places as beyond the pale of notice; the spoils 
belong to the empowered, and in the absence of 
jail committee. Attorney G-eiieral, or a conserva- 
tive regulator, reaps his thousands from the 
spoliation of food. England established this 
system, and South Carolina continues it. 

Here, Mr. Simms, are scenes for your labours ; 
enter among them, and correct your ''Southern 
View" of Mrs. Stowe's book. 

The voice of South Carolina calls loudly 
against the injustice of her son being imprisoned 
in Batavia, and waiting five months for a trial ; 



Uncle To matHome. 81 

how is it at home ? In her jails are men who, com- 
mitted witliout a hearing, have lain there five, six, 
and seven months awaiting a trial — sufi"ering for 
bread, destitute, crying hunger ; laying down upon 
a coarse blanket (the State's own) in the after- 
noon, and dreaming of food and its enjoyments, to 
wake to the disappointment of a dream — to know 
that they would receive a bit of bread only, at 
eight o'clock the next morning. 0, proud State ! 
These very men are incarcerated without a hear- 
ing, and confined in the fourth story, in badly 
ventilated cells — suffering the sweltering influences 
of an , unhealthy climate, and waiting five, six, 
seven, and eight months to be discharged by the 
grand jury, or get a hearing before the sessions, 
the city court seeming to have little jurisdiction 
over those who fall into the hands of the county 
sheriff. Circumstances of right or wrong should 
always claim the attention of a hospitable people 
for the incarcerated, and hear his cause. This is 
punishing the innocent according to usage, and 
upon the same principle that Mr. Simms would 
find no poetry in the negro's cause, and would not 
listen to the story of his wTongs, because some 
rich man said he was a bad nigger. 
6 



82 Uncle Tom at Home. 

In that institution we will find the noble-hearted 
jailer, who gets but a paltry pittance for his la- 
bour, acting the part of a father, a physician, a 
penitentiary-keeper, and a jailer. You will find 
him, while struggling to raise his family in the 
same sphere of morality that has marked him 
through life, taking the bread from his own table 
to relieve the sufi'ering of those around him. Ask 
him for a history — he will point you to the scenes 
which are disclosed to the letter in Mrs. Stowe's 
book. He can give you his experience in punish- 
ments as a mere matter of business. Turn to the 
records of the jail, and you will find fifty-four col- 
oured seamen imprisoned in one year, on that sin- 
gular charge — ''contrary to law.'' Ask who gets 
the immense fees that accrue from it ; and if it is 
right because of the influence without. Why put 
them with " had niggers" within ? The tenacity 
holding these things as rights, may be reasoned 
down to a small point. 

Ask the jailer what his moral character has done 
for him, in the light of contrast with those who 
lord a control over him, and then establish your 
philosophy of "moral sentiment." 

The power of magistracy is a petty sovereignty 



Uncle Tom at Home. 83 

in Charleston. One man having a difficulty with 
another, gets a warrant from a magistrate, and 
without regard to the oiFending party, he is incar- 
cerated without a hearing, notwithstanding the 
face of the warrant contains the usual clause — 
" bring the hody before me." There is a fee-secret 
in this which Mr. Simms has never troubled his 
head to solve. In this position the incarcerated 
has the alternative of giving bail if he has friends, 
or settling according to the stipulation of the party 
incarcerating. Thus one man has power to vent 
his feelings upon another, and the justice, being a 
participant, settles the affair upon certain condi- 
tions, and charges the ^'fees to the State.'' The 
same justice will bring a " cross-warrant," and 
both parties being incarcerated, they can amuse 
their antagonistical feelings upon an agreed point 
honourable to both, pay the justice, be friends 
again, and come out — ^^fees charged to the State." 
We could enumerate to any extent, citing cases 
that came under our observation. This is not 
law — it is tolerated injustice, protected by a wanton 
inattention. See records; and refer to Colonel 

R. W. S , a gentleman of high standing at 

the Charleston bar-— the only person who has 



84 Uncle Tom at Home. 

shouldered the Attorney G I's business, and be- 
come interested in the removal of such grievances, 
and has made himself puUichj unpopular by so 
doing. 

5th. In the case of Hewett V , is a valua- 
ble instance of a poor man's justice in South Caro- 
lina. Hewett, formerly steward on board the 
steamship *' David Brown," is committed upon the 
charge of defrauding '^ Johnsoii' to the amount 
of " three ten cent pieces.'' The object is clearly 
malicious, yet he is denied a hearing, and com- 
pelled to lay in jail nearly four months, without 
money or friends. Finally, as a matter of com- 
promise, he is offered the alternative of leaving 
the tState, or waiting three months longer for a 
hearing before the Sessions. How is he to leave 
it ? he has no money, and the order requires two 
officers to guard him to the ship or steamboat, and 
see him safe out of sight — for which they demand 
a dollar each. In this instance, the man became 
the drudge of the jail, at a dollar a week, and 
with the assistance of the good-hearted jailer, pro- 
cured the means to pay his passage to Wilming- 
ton. See records. 

In another case, a gentleman is dragged from 



Uncle ToMAT Home. 85 

his room at the A n Hotel, where he had put up 

while passing through Charleston to his home in 
New Orleans. This was for a rebuke given to a 
person attached to the house. A meddling-justice 
was present at the moment, issued a warrant, and 
notwithstanding the gentleman's strong appeal for 
a hearing, or time to get bail, was marched off to 
jail instanter. His lady, with true womanly en- 
ergy, enlisted the interposition of some popular 
gentlemen^ who took up the matter, and finding 
he was a person of position procured his release 
as quietly as possible. In the presence of several 
persons, of which we were one, he appealed to the 
magistrate, inquiring if such was law and justice 
in South Carolina ; and after several attempts to 
evade a direct answer, he rejoined by saying it 
was a right justices in South Carolina had. This 
case cannot be mistaken — and is only one among 
the many. Turn your pen upon it Mr. Simms — 
rout a tyranny that sets law and justice at defi- 
ance, before you bring up the strength of law to 
condemn Mrs. Stowe's book. 

6th. A gentleman of the legal profession — hut 
from the North, is insulted in the street by a true 
Carolinian ; the guard interposes, and coming un- 



86 Uncle Tom at Home. 

der that department the matter is brought before 
the Mayor. His Honour, viewing it as a small 
matter, very properly dismissed it, without costs. 
This was not the beginning of the end. The true 
Carolinian, who was the offending party, procured 
a warrant from a "justice," and had the other in- 
carcerated for assault and lattery ; and this, with- 
out granting him a hearing or giving him an op- 
portunity to procure bail. Here he remained for 
weeks, among the lowest criminals, and would 
have remained for months, had it not been for the 
kindly interposition of the member of the bar to 
whom we have before referred, who procured his 
release through the Attorney-General. That young 
man was subject to the meanest impositions in 
South Carolina ; but in his native city he holds a 
responsible appointment under the Governor of 
the State. 

7th. A magistrate issues a " peace warrant" 
upon the slightest pretext. This is done upon 
parties who are held as having no loosition, and 
being poor, they must go to jail without a hear- 
ing. After a certain durance, the same magis- 
trate will intercede for them, and on payment of 
an attorney's fee — for they always associate the 



Uncle Tom at Home. 87 

office with the legal profession, and work upon two 
distinct angles — can procure his release. If he 
has no money, he has the point of option before 
him — " leave the State,''' or remain in durance vile 
" a year and a day." An instance is known where 
a young man was kept in jail several successive 
years and days by this process, merely to gratify 
the feelings of a relative — and finally dispatched 
his tortured existence by committing suicide in 
prison. 

These grievances exist in full force in your own 
"blooming garden of freedom," Mr. Simms ; 
and we have witnessed the amount of suffering 
they entail upon dependent families with pained 
feelings. 

Husbands put their wives in jail to please their 
fancy, and wives do the same vice versa, all 
through the medium of a magistrate, who gets 
his retainer, and charges the "fees to the State." 
We know an instance where a woman committed 
her husband five times in a few weeks for intoxi- 
cation. The State stood the fees. And not- 
withstanding the gallantry and chivalry of South 
Carolina, ladies are imprisoned for debt — and 
have to remain in durance among the sterner sex 



88 Uncle Tom at Home. 

and low criminals, weeks, months, and perhaps 
years — as the case may be. We know a beauti- 
ful instance which took place the present year, 
where a lady attempted to scale the walls, but 
made a singular escape through the modesty of 
the defendant's attorney, clearing the city just in 
time to save herself from the hands of the sheriff. 

8th. Men serve their sentences, and are arrested 
upon a peace warrant for the same offence before 
they have escaped the prison doors, are re-com- 
mitted, and must remain a year and a day, or 

leave the State. See cases " Miller vs. ," 

'' Comens vs. ," " Kelly vs. ;" the first 

was an inoffensive old man, who had been attached 
to the custom-house for a great many years. 
Everybody said it was a shame, but nobody acted 
to relieve him. The others were lads, and left 
the State in accordance with the majesty of the 
law. 

Mr. Simms may meet us with that general re- 
joinder which greets those who '^interfere'' with a 
master when unlawfully punishing his negro, " It 
is none of your business." But we are among the 
"flowers" of his own "blooming garden," and we 
shall continue to the black ones, showing what 
they are. 



Uncle Tom at Home. 89 

This is a very profitable business for the county 
sheriff, and the magistrates, but hard amusement 
for those who are compelled to suffer in their cells, 
through the most dangerous season, waiting for 
the October term of the Court — especially when 
the members of the bar have power to postpone 
the setting of the Court a few weeks for their own 
accommodation. 

9th. Here men are found nearly naked, having 
sold their clothes and little effects, to procure the 
means to sustain life ; men who were committed 
upon suspicion of trifling offences, and had waited 
in jail six and seven months, without a hearing. 
See the cases of Bergen and Quail. In fact, so 
little attention is paid by the public to what is 
going on within their institutions, that a few years 
ago a well known Jew was appointed jail-master 
by the sheriff, and instead of respecting the duties 
of his office, prohibited liquor from without, and 
opened a bar-room within, selling the poisonous 
drug to the poor prisoners, at an exorbitant 
price, and taking their little jewelry and clothing, 
at a paltry pittance, in return. This gentleman 
(Tobias) now enjoys his wealth thus made, with as 
much importance as the straight-forward merchant. 



90 Uncle TomatHome. 

We called this poor men's justice when we were 
in Charleston, and we call it the same now. 

Now if we take into consideration that a judi- 
cial magistrate forms the highest tribunal by 
which a negro can be tried, except in capital 
crimes, when he is honoured with a board of three 
or five freeholders, we may form some estimation 
of the justice that awaits him. Mrs. Stowe made 
an error when she said : " Thank God, the slave 
trade has been abolished ;" and Mr. Simms made 
a fatal one when he founded his review upon the 
law and the penitentiaries ; he forgot that she had 
none of the latter. 

The reader may ask us, " Why are men kept 
starving ? you said the State allowed thirty cents 
a day." We answer : it is upon the same princi- 
ple that laws are made to protect the slave, and 
remain a dead letter upon the statutes. The pri- 
soner gets what is called a pound of bread and a 
pound of meat — the former tolerable, and the 
latter unfit for human beings. The bread costs 
three, and the meat five cents per pound, as per 
contract. But as no provision is made for him to 
cook his meat, he is forced to the necessity of ac- 
cepting a pint of something called soup — reducing 



Uncle TomatHome. 91 

the cost of his allowance to six and a quarter (GJ) 
cents per day, leaving a profit of (13f) thirteen 
and three-quarter cents per head for somebody. 

The nigger gets neither bread nor meat, but is 
fed at a cost of about four cents a day, and he 
must be contented at that. Now these are gross 
wrongs, and could not exist in any other " bloom- 
ing garden" than Charleston — Mr. Simms' own 
home. They are very unpopular themes to touch, 
it is true; yet a strange voice sounded them in 
the executive ear a few months ago, and, honour 
to the awakening spirit of Governor Means, he 
called for a statement, propounding fourteen ques- 
tions. The question is, did he receive it as per 
records ? 

On reading a Charleston paper, a few days ago, 
we were much pleased to find that the G-rand Jury, 
after a century of abuses, had come to the grave 
consideration of making a presentment of these 
things; but lest they should personally ofi'end, 
exonerated the peculating party, and charged the 
blame to the sovereign State. The jailer gets 
none of this immense profit, nor produces the suf- 
fering which it entails. He is poor, yet above it ; 
and takes from his own table to appease the craving 



92 Uncle Tom at Home. 

necessities of those around liim. Mr. Simms 
should have known these things ; it was his duty, 
not ours. He should have searched out the secret 
life of his own city, before he told his readers that 
such things could not exist there, in the face of 
law and hospitality — pointing them to the misera- 
ble condition of the poor in New England. He 
should have preceded Mrs. Stowe, been a mission- 
ary among the abuses, and not fallen into those 
ancient State opinions, scouting the working sys- 
tem of a penitentiary, and substituting lingering 
idleness, aggravated necessity, and the whipping- 
post in the market, for proper correctives. 

10th. We have seen a negro trader march 
seven negroes, hand-cuffed and chained, through 
the public streets of Charleston at noon-day; 
and yet Mr. Simms comments at length upon the 
inconsistency of chaining the hero Tom. And we 
have seen five white men linked in iron fellow- 
ship, on their way to the market, there to be 
stripped and lashed, according to the sovereign 
law. The affair presented an importance in keep- 
ing with the dignity of the State, and was worthy 
of a more descriptive pen than ours. Numerous 
officials, in full dress, holding long tip-staffs in 



Uncle Tom at Home. 93 

tlieir hands, and the sheriff in his toggery offici- 
ated in the busy scene ; the latter applied the lash 
to the bare back, apparently for the amusement 
of a crowd of "niggers," who gathered around, 
and were " right glad to see Buckra git im, cos ho 
know how he feel." There is a singular incon- 
gruity in disgracing a white man in the estima- 
tion of a negro, yet giving the meanest white man 
supreme power over him. But if the negro dare 
not raise his hand to a white man, he has a con- 
solation of being whipped according to the most 
improved principles of modern science, as well in 
the hoisting machine as the privacy — we mean 
when he is whipped according to law. This has 
become a sort of funny dowry in the feelings of 
the people, and they treasure it for what it may 
bring forth. Mr. Simms must reason upon nat- 
ural effect, learn the poor white man's position, 
and estimate the negroes in comparison. 

Does this not bespeak a reckless disregard of 
human rights — of law and justice ? The reader 
will say yes, and think strange that it exists ! 
And it exists because men have inured their feel- 
ings to a system of slave life, and associate every 
thing connected with labour and suffering with its 



94 Uncle Tom AT Home. 

endurance. They hear of suffering and wrong — 
men grasping each other's property — slaves being 
dragged off — free negroes run off — slaves levied 
upon — retained by stress, distress warrants, and 
cruelty of bad owners — and yet they seem to 
them mere every-day affairs, unpoetical and un- 
worthy of their pity. The straight forward busi- 
ness man knows little of them, and proceeds to 
the cares of his counting-room as if they were 
matters entirely uninteresting to his business ; the 
democratic aristocrat sits smoking his cigar in the 
jolly affluence of life — to accommodate his good 
lady he may write an order for some ''wench" to 
carry to the work-house and get herself ''paddled ;" 
the middle classes scratch for a living, measuring 
the square inches of work in their employed ne- 
groes ; the voice of the lower class is dependent, 
and the press dare not touch them — just in this 
proportion is the slave's wrongs left untouched. 

11th. Now Mr. Simms, while the law is tram- 
pled upon in your city, and the rights of the 
poor disregarded, what is the power of money ? 
and how are favours dispensed to the man of 
position? We could enlighten you with a de- 
tailed history, but will content ourselves with 



Uncle ToMAT Home. 95 

referring you to one or two prominent and well 
known cases: " Gatewood vs. State of South 

Carolina ; Gatewood vs. Moses ; Laurens vs. . 

The public cry shame; yet justice sleeps for 
them, and sentences tarry by the way-side — per- 
haps in the Attorney-General's pocket. When 
you speak of justice, remember its qualities ; and 
when you name law for the slave's protection, 
know that you are endeavouring to impress the 
minds of your readers with an intolerant absur- 
dity. 

12th. The character of Haley, and his associa- 
tion with Shelby, seems to be a particular objec- 
tion, and in connection with the law, forms par- 
ticular reasons for branding Mrs. Stowe's book as 
"a tissue of falsehood." Now let us go to your 
own door, that you may not mistake, and point 
you to pictures of perfection set forth in Mrs. 
Stowe's book. Bob. Austin, Bob. Adams, and 
Rumney ^' on Santee." The transactions of the 
latter would outshine those of Haley ; while the 
mendacity of the former has been more daring, and 
so openly displayed in your midst as not to have 
escaped your notice. You must go among them, 
listen to their fine spun tests of " nigger natur," 



96 Uncle Tom at Home. 

how they swop — " strike a trade for a gal, a 
prime feller, extra prime feller, young-un; and 
an old rack that a'nt got seven coppers worth a 
flesh on him, that they intend to make a clare 
two and two aiights upon." You must discard 
etiquette, for it wont do to stand upon point of 
caste, necessity waves that, but be friendly and 
sociable with them, and inform yourself upon 
their sacred occupation through agreeable en- 
deavours. 

13th. The reader must note the names of Bob. 
Adams and Bob. Austin, for we intend to give 
samples of their bold mendacity in the " sunny 
city," that he may contrast it with that of Mrs. 
Stowe's Haley. As for Rumney — he will give 
you an exciting history of his life on the borders 
of Texas — his slave traffic in the Middle and 
Southern States — his connections with Bob. Aus- 
tin and Mr. G , of Charleston, and what a 

cunning system he had for running off free negroes, 
and " how he did'nt care seven coppers for the 
law." He will tell you about his being pestered with 
runaways — how he "peppered" them with shot, 
"good big slugs" — let his hounds worry their 
''shins,'' and finally, how he applied the stock 



Uncle Tom at Home. 97 

of Lis " double-barrel gun" until he made tbem 
submit with their eyes popping out. He will 
also tell you his revolting mode of examining 
wenches, before he purchased; frightening them 
into obedience ; his punishments ; trouble in sepa- 
rating "wenches" from their " blasted young 
uns," and terrors coupled with jolly times. Yes! 
he will give you the whole modus operandi of mak- 
ing up his gang — very cool, very unassuming, and 
perfectly business-like — assuring you at the same 
time that he is just the ''humanest man about." 
That niggers have actually run to him for protec- 
tion, begging him to buy them of their masters. 
Kumney is a right " good fellow" in his way, and 
you must " take somethin" whenever he asks you 
to join, in order to get the beauty of his know- 
ledge. If he present his " flaming dagger," 
telling you what he has done with it, and how 
he defied the whole guard of Charleston, you 
must not shudder — flatter his bravery. 

The association of his trade has made him what 
he is, and the good traits of his character may 
yet be warmed into genial nature. His history 
of the slave trade would make a work of immense 
interest. We had the pleasure of his acquaintance, 
7 



98 Uncle Tom at Home. 

and stored our noddle with his choicest morsels. 
They are of rare species — truths blooming in Mr. 
Simms' "blooming garden of freedom." Rumncy 
will invite you to his pleasant home on Santee — 
tell you how he "shoots" his neighbour's "nig- 
gers" for hunting his hogs with " cur-dogs^' in- 
stead of hounds ; and how he waylaid them in the 
swamp, and nearly killed them, imitating the man- 
ner in which they jumped when he put the "plugs" 
into them ; and he will tell you how, when their 
owners came down upon him on horseback, he 
presented his "double-barrel," and bid them de- 
fiance. He will, too, disclose a little logic in the 
law, by telling you he knew they could not touch 
him, for "nigger" testimony " war'nt worth a 
." For particulars see Georgetown district. 

Here is a Haley at Mr. Simms' own door ; and 
marks are abundant in every district of the State, 
so perfectly set forth in Mrs. Stowe's book, that 
it were impossible for Mr. Simms to have over- 
looked them. We therefore submit it, whether 
his errors are unconscious or intentional ! 

14th. We must now pass to his forced doctrine, 
that the slave being property, founds his master's 
interest, consequently he will not abuse that which 



Uncle Tom at Home. 99 

is to his own detriment. This is straining proha- 
bility for an issue — something after the principle 
that every man acts for his own interest in every- 
thing. Mr. Simms should have contrasted the 
subtleness of man's nature, and the power of 
mental and physical action in governing his pur- 
poses, with that medium of probability which 
hangs upon mere circumstance. This is a pre- 
eminent point in Mrs. Stowe's book— to show 
Southerners that they neglect their own interests. 
Every good master will acknowledge that it is 
for his interest to feed his negro well ; but that 
the principle is carried out, no honest Southerner 
will insist. In our observation, we should class 
it upon a par with asking an honest son of the 
Emerald Isle, working his frame of bones in a 
"gravel cart," why he did not feed that animal 
better? Upon the same principle, it would be 
better for his interest. Mr. Simms does not seem 
to analyze the effect of circumstance. We have 
witnessed many instances where negroes were 
worked down by hard masters, to the last stage 
of animal substance. This was done by the ne- 
cessity of procuring crops with insufficient means. 
In this manner gangs are sent to market in the 



100 Uncle Tom AT Home. 

fall, with scarcely enough instinctive activity to 
support them. In this state it becomes necessary 
for the "broker" to put them through a process 
of physical "fatting," and mental quickening, be- 
fore they are fit to present under the hammer. 

Mr. Simms can find this out by stepping from 
his study into the jail, work-house, or any of the 
slave-dealer's establishments. In Alabama, the 
act of her Legislature provides a proper ration of 
meat every day for the slave, establishing a penalty 
if the master withholds it. In South Carolina, 
food and raiment is entirely optional with the 
master ; and Mr. Simms will not attempt to deny 
the fact, that few masters in his State give their 
negroes anything but corn. We have heard the 
mendacity of this subject discussed with as much 
freedom among Southerners in Charleston, as it 
would be at the North. Now what is the amount 
of labour required of the negro ? how is his phy- 
sical construction estimated, and what is he re- 
quired to sustain it with ? AYe all know how far 
the amount of labour is graduated by the feelings 
of the master ; but we must take the generality 
of plantation life, and make our estimate upon the 
best circumstances. Here we find that the " prime 



Uncle Tom at Home. 101 

fellow" cannot finish his task in less than nine or 
ten hours, and to support his animal constitution 
through this, he receives a peck of corn a week — 
if '' massa be fust rich rice planter," he will give 
his "prime hands" two pounds of bacon with it. 
Even this is a beggarly charity, when we consider 
the planter's boasted affluence. This bacon is 
generally rancid and oily, principally Western 
sides and shoulders of " small meat," and often 
very bad. 

Let the reader reflect upon the natural issue of 
this state of things, and he will soon see the evils 
which Mrs. Stowe has pointed at with unmistak- 
able aim. Mr. Simms' fine, fat, saucy, shiny nig- 
gers, are principally those presented in the best 
phase of city life, where it would not become the 
etiquette of a gentleman of position, unless his 
servants appeared with becoming gentility before 
his guests. 

The plea of property interest as a protection 
is the weakest that could be advanced. 

In conversation with an intelligent Charlesto- 
nian, a few weeks ago, upon the system which 
planters pursued in the Georgetown and upper 
districts of South Carolina, where he had resided, 



102 Uncle Tom at Home. 

we asked him " why such a regime was pur- 
sued, when planters knew it was against their 
interests ?" 

"A great many planters are advanced by their 
factors beyond the extent of their proper credit, 
and having exhausted their means, they am 
forced to take care of their crop in a limited 
period, and go upon the principle that there is 
plenty fish in the brooks, and game in the swamps, 
which the negroes can procure and take care of 
themselves, after task," said he. 

This was making no consideration for inciden- 
tal liability. " Virtually that he must steal, if he 
cannot procure it in any other way," said we. 

" Well, it too often amounts to that — the sys- 
tem is bad and to be regretted," he rejoined, with 
something of a forced acknowledgment. 

We will now instance a case in point, and refer 
Mr. Simms to proofs. A planter upon the Pee- 
dee owned a gang of negroes, upon which a bro- 
ker in Charleston held a mort^rafire. There were 
also several executions against the planter, and 
attempts had been made to levy upon " the pro- 
perty ;" but the mortgagee, holding valid prior- 
. ity, acted as his guardian ; yet he was bound to 



Uncle Tom at Home. 103 

surrender them to his mortgagee as soon as his 
crop was gathered. His factor had advanced him 
upon the crop, and held a prior lien upon it. Here 
it would have been for the interest of the mortga- 
gee, that the negroes were well taken care of; 
but, the master, although his possession was neg- 
ative, his power was absolute up to a certain 
period, and " the property " mortgaged in a high 
state of the market, was at its full value accord- 
ing to the decline, consequently his only interest 
was in the amount of the crop to be gathered. He 
was compelled to gather his crop without propor- 
tionate means to feed his negroes, and they were 
sent into the market in the worst condition we ever 
saw human beings. Had Mr. Simms stepped to the 
jail, he would have witnessed the comical process 
of fattening and polishing the spiritual life of pro- 
perty. The worthy " broker," who every night 
thanked God that he was a good Christian, ordered 
the jailer to "stuff" their skins with as much 
meat as it " could hold," and would marshal them 
himself every morning — precisely as Mrs. Stowe 
has described. See Condy and Poulnot. 

15th. Another point of objection with Mr. 
Simms, is the unnecessary brute force employed 
by the trader. 



104 Uncle Tom at Home. 

A single instance will show the correctness upon 
that point. In September last, we»saw one of the 
dealers we have before mentioned, take a negro he 
had purchased to make up his gang, and after 
ironing him, and putting a huge pair of handcuffs 
upon his wrists, then, seizing them by the middle 
with his hands, placed his foot against the negro's 
heart, and uttering a fierce imprecation, made the 
negro brace with all his power, until the poor vic- 
tim groaned under the pain. This brute force was 
unnecessary — the "boy" had been a peaceable, 
quiet creature all his life, spoke of good Master 
and his kindness to him with tears in his eyes. 
This " boy" was from Beaufort — " sold for no 
fault" save his Master's reduced fortunes. He 
was a good representative of one of Mrs. Stowe's 
characters. 

This brute force was not to test the strength of 
the irons about his hands, as the dealer pretended, 
but to overawe the negro, and teach him what a 
monster he had to deal with. See George Ingram, 
jun., and Capt. Poulnot. 

16th. In answer to another point of objection, 
we will refer to the Bo?/ Peter, the property of 
the very Rev. Mr. Y . 



Uncle Tom AT Home. 105 

Peter, his mother, and three sisters, had been 
the pious, favoured, and respectable servants of 
this Rev. gentleman from childhood. With him 
reverend nature was just like many other good 
men's — not impregnable to frailty. The changes 
of fortune fell upon him, and he struggled under 
Mr. Simms' particular necessity "z. o. w." Pe- 
ter was jail'd for the market, with a pledge of hon- 
our from his Master that he ivould not sell him 
out of the city, or away from the family, and that 

he would give instructions to Mr. McB , his 

" broker," to that effect. Affairs became pressing, 
money short, nigger not sold, price did'nt suit, 
conditions wouldn't stand — and the "broker'' 
played his man upon the point. Finally, the Rev. 
gentleman, in order to save his scruples, sold Peter 
to the "broker." Here he went through the 
usual routine of tests before customers, such as 
quick-step " monkey-shines," knockings on the chest 
with the full force of the " broker's" j^s^, standing 
against the wall, and having his lower jaw and 
his " shins" rapped with a whip stock to show 
how he could jump, and all without effecting a sale. 
This may seem strange to the distant reader, af- 
ter all such means had been taken to display his 



106 Uncle Tom at Home. 

merits of sale, and particularly his good disposi- 
tion — wliich means humbleness. But they are 
only little flowering truths bespotting the paths of 
Mr. Simms' "blooming garden of freedom." 

It is soon settled that the " hoy' must be shipped 
to New Orleans, but Peter will not believe it, 
for " he no Buckra unsartin, but Massa too big 
Christian to betray confidence so." It was too 
true for his feelings, and in a few days he found 
himself manacled and marched ofi" to join the 
chain-gang. We, wdth several others, witnessed 
this scene, and our object is to place it where you 
cannot mistake the object. 

The poor fellow begged with tears in his eyes 
for time to see his " Old Massa," and his mother 
and ^ters once more. Was he allowed it ? — No ! 
he was kicked out of the door with his manacles 
on, and the jailer ordered to put his old mother, 
who visited him while he was " caged for market,*' 
up in the cells to satisfy another claim. See Re- 
cords. 

No writer ever portrayed scenes, nor delineated 
character with so much perfection, as Mrs. Stowe 
Las done the associations of Haley and Shelby. 

17th. Eliza ! It seems impossible, to Mr. 



Uncle Tom at Home. 107 

Simms that the heroic nobleness of such a crea- 
tion should exist under a dark skin — no matter 
what her extraction may be. In order to be as 
comprehensible as possible we will point to the 
Eliza, a piece of property once owned by the 
same very Rev. gentleman, who failed to make 
her his mistress, through her firm defiance — and 
caused a domestic eruption in his household. "We 
must not venture beyond a point of delicacy ; 
yet she was an Eliza with daring virtues. Sit 
down by her and hear her story, Mr. Simms — 
the public know it well. The cause of her being 
sent ofi"- — her miserable condition when in the 
slave-dealer's hands — her mother's appeal, and 
the manner she was found and brought back by 
a gentleman in your city, would make a narra- 
tive more glaring than the picture of Mrs. Stowe's 
Eliza. We could point to a dozen such Elizas 
in your own city ! — how strange that they should 
have escaped your notice. The fact may be, 
simply, a small difference in the measure of mind 
between Northerners and Southerners, one view- 
ing them as " horrible" outrages upon human 
nature, the other, as things common to ordinary 
life. 



108 Uncle Tom at Home. 

18th. For specimens of St. Clair's establish- 
ment and change of fortune, we cannot do 
better than to refer you to George street. Ask 
who lives in those old noble looking Doric edifices, 
and listen to the oft repeated answer — there is a 
legend in it ! They tell you — " 0, bless me, yes ! 
it was once the mansion of the so-and-so's — one 
of the ^ first families^ but they are poor now — it 
ivas a sudden downfall. Mr. What-you-may-call- 
um owns it now; they say he did'nt get it honestly. 
There was a long suit about it, and poor so-and- 
so died miserably poor at last.'' 

You will find the portrait of life there, and in 
many other streets of Charleston. Those noble 
old castles have changed with the circumstances 
of their owners, from time to time, and the trans- 
formation meets the observer's eye at every 
glance, and has been developed in detail by Mrs. 
Stowe, who holds its secret history at the point 
of her pen. 

19th. We now come to the great point upon 
which Mr. Simms has joined issue with Mrs. 
Stowe ; — the existence of a Legree, his cruelty 
to uncle Tom, and what would be the result if 
such a thing should occur. 



Uncle Tom at Home. 109 

By the laws of Soutli Carolina, it is a penal 
offence to " run off," 'or sell freemen into slavery ; 
yet no person in Charleston, acquainted with the 
workings of slave-dealers, will question the fact 
of their being " run off," or of its being of frequent 
occurrence. Now let us ask Mr. Simms to point 
us to an instance where the penalty was enforced ? 
Again, he will not deny that masters have brutally 
murdered their slaves. Have they suffered the 
penalty ? 

We will now cite Legrees and "Uncle Toms," 
and if Mr. Simms requires the particular history, 
revolting as it is, we will give it in detail. On 
"James' Island," near at hand, is the gentleman 
we have referred to before. Mr. Simms cannot 
miss him, and the neighbours will disclose the his- 
tory of his tyranny. Many of his punishments 
were similar to that of his namesake on Red River, 
w^ith the grave exception of liis tying them to trees, 
and leaving them, cut and bleeding, all night. If 
this is not sufficient, we will go to the plantation 
of a certain Mr. Butler, at Beaufort district, where 
transactions well known to the public at large 
have stained the name of civilization. 

To be more unmistakable in our citations, we 



110 Uncle Tom at Home. 

will found them upon records of Court — here we 
] eg Mr. Simms to follow us 'into Edgefield district. 
Here the case oi Harden \s. State of South Caro- 
lina, presents one of the " best boys" in the State 
murdered in the most brutal manner; and tho 
cause — the lust of the master. The evidence is 
that Harden, assisted by his overseer, took the 
"boy" to a corn-shed or barn, stripped him, tied 
him to a rack, and lashed him Avith a cow-hide in the 
morning and afternoon, until the flesh became hag- 
gled upon his back. Not satisfied with this bar- 
barous ferocity, he went to the bloody spot on the 
following day, and again, with the assistance of his 
overseer, drew the victim's head and feet together 
with ropes, and committed a barbarous outrage 
upon his body, which not quite ending his life, he 
dispatched it with a wooden weapon a few hours 
after. 

What was done with Harden ? Will ^Ir. 

Simms tell his readers, or shall we ? He 

fled the State, and his overseer cleared himself 
by turning State's evidence. As soon as the little 
excitement was over, the black death of a black 
" nigger' subsided. Mr. Harden returned, gave 
himself up to the power of accommodating justice, 



Uncle Tom at Home. Ill 

was tried at the fall term of the Court of Ses- 
sions — and notwithstanding the influence of a 
report that the deceased had attempted to com- 
mit an outrage upon a white female — the case 
was too revolting, and the evidence too positive, 
to admit a doubt upon which the jury could clear 
him, and he was found guilty of wilful murder. 

" Was he hung ?" the reader will ask. Hung 
indeed ! — hang a white man for killing a " nig- 
ger !" ah ! that would be a pretty principle to 
establish against the sovereignty of the institu- 
tion. Ko efforts, save those of constrained neces- 
sity were made for the rigour of the law, while 
the great talent of the State was arrayed for the 
defendant. He appealed to the ^'Appeal Court," 
the appeal was granted, his bail continued, and 
that tribunal ordered the case back for a new 
trial. In the course of a year, the case was again 
brought before the Court of Sessions, where the 

jury, after mature deliberation, brought in a 
verdict of manslaughter, with a suspending clause 
recommending him to certain mercies. Is he to 
be found in one of Mr. Simms' " penitentiaries ?" 
No, reader, he was allowed to do as all gentlemen 

do, and was simply pardoned by the executive in 



112 Uncle Tom at Home. 

consideration of the verdict. Forgetting the 
absence of penitentiaries in South Carolina was 
an oversight in Mr. Simms. 

Follow me into Darlington district, and examine 
the case of Benton vs. State of South Carolina, 
Here a man died one of the most brutal deaths 
that the force of mind could picture. He is 
dragged to a blacksmith's shop, his tongue seared 
and almost drawn from his head with red-hot tongs 
— then stripped, and branded upon indecent parts 
of his body, and the next day again tied up and 
lashed, and left in a miserable place, where he died 
in less than twenty-four hours — a more torturous 
death than that of Mrs. Stowe's hero. These 
things may startle the more sensitive feelings of 
mankind ; and we hear voices around us saying, 
" you do wrong to tell them abroad" — but they are 
truths which should be ferreted out and exposed, 
and the perpetrators of them made to suffer that 
condign punishment which they deserve, for 
through them the good master suffers. 

Where is the offender in this case ? Accommo- 
dating justice granted him bail, and he is a gen- 
tleman at large, after making a short visit into 
North Carolina. See Dr. Boise ayid Mr. Prince 
of Darlino'ton District. 



Uncle Tom at Home.. 113 

Now let us point to a more recent case, and 
await the issue of justice there. The case of Craig, 
charged with the murder of his slave. This case 
was to have been tried a few weeks ago, before the 
Court of Sessions at Laurensville, Judge Evens 
presiding. There is a revolting history connected 
with this case ; and yet we know the complexion 
of society so well, that we can anticipate an hon- 
ourable acquittal, or a peremptory pardon, if found 
guilty. 

Can the reader imagine how these things have 
escaped Mr. Simms' observation, that he should 
have made no allowance for them in his " South- 
ern View ?" , 

20th. Upon another particular point of objec- 
tion, which is brought up in the shape of a general 
pot-pourri of characters and property interests, we 
will refer to the well known case of Bella Martin. 

This case is attended with threefold more men- 
dacity than anything in Mrs. Stowe's book — the 
principal feature making it so, being that of the 
State trying to reduce human beings from a state of 
freedom into that of slavery. There is history and 
misery enough in this case to fill a volume, and 
yet it lies buried among the things of local life. 
8 



114 Uncle Tom at Home. 

Bella, "a likely wench," lives in a little cabin 
at "Walterboro, in the State of South Carolina, 
labouring at honest toil. According to usage, she 
becomes the wife of a mulatto man, and the issue 
is " a likely daughter." In the course of years, 
this daughter becomes the mistress of a certain 
Mr. Price, and the issue is three children — Benj. 
Price, Anna Price, and Eliza Price — the former 
becomes a " tip-top likely fellow," and the " gals " 
are extra fair to look upon. Hence, Bella is a 
grandmother. But, in the meantime, "Martin'' 
(a widower with three sons) steps in, separates 
Bella from her mulatto lord, and takes her unto 
himself — heuQe the name of Bella Martin. Price, 
the father of the three children, ''dies out,'' and 
the mother dies a premature death. At this 
juncture Bella and her grand-children are the 

property of Mr. , who threatens to sell them 

" off," unless Martin — who was a man of " pro- 
perty " — becomes a purchaser. Martin assented, 
paid the purchase money, and received his bill of 
sale according to the conditions. Hence they 
were his for any purpose. Martin has children 
by Bella, but they all die at an early age. His 
sons by lawful wedlock become desperate charac- 



Uncle Tom at Home. 115 

ters, and attempt to squander Lis property in 
riotous living. He is compelled to distrain them, 
and finally abandon them to their dissolute fate. 
They make an attempt to get his property upon 
the plea of their father's insanity, before a court 
of justice. Failing in this, they attempted to 
''runoff'' the children, but only succeeded in 
carrying off, beyond the limits of the State, one 
small child. 

Martin died a friendless death ; but anticipat- 
ing the fate of Bella and her grand-children, be- 
queathed them their freedom, which was set forth 
in his will, and also by papers which he thought 
to be in accordance with the law. 

"Jones" is the executor of Martin's "pro- 
perty," and during his life saw it righted — but he 
died, and his son-in-law, Hudson^ succeeded him. 
And being an avaricious man, he began to make 
advances to get possession of the " property " for 
his own benefit and behoof. Bella, becoming aware 
of this, moved to Charleston neck, where she lived 
in want and misery several years. Martin's sons 
have also moved to Charleston, where one died a 
besotted inebriate, and the others have become mis- 
erable specimens of loathing nature. Another 



116 Uncle Tom at Home. 

plot is propounded between them and Hudson to 
dispose of the three children, and by flattering 
Bella, they induce her to become a third party — 
necessary to its success. This fails, and finally, 
one by one, the two sons and Bella died wretched 
inebriates, in a miserable hovel on *' the neck." 

The three children are now alone, acknowledged 
as free children ; the girls work at dress-making, 
and the boy is with a Mr. Johnson, who, with Mr. 
Hoppo, act as the reputed guardians of the three. 
And here quiet prevails for a time. 

Incited by the love of gain, Hudson makes his 
last grand attempt to put the value of the "pro- 
perty" in his pocket. He enters into a fiendish 
plot with the aforesaid Bob Austin and Mr. Gil- 
christ, a " broker." A bill of sale purporting to 
be from Bella Martin to Hudson, with the value 
of the three children, price paid, &c. &c., lays 
the corner stone. With this Gilchrist is to pro- 
ceed, carriages and other means are at hand, and 
Bob Austin is to run them into a distant State. 
When there he is to put them into the hands of 
another " broker," the correspondent of Gilchrist, 
who, with the specific understanding that exists 
among them, will sign the bond necessary for 



Uncle Tom at Home. IIT 

their sale — and they are slaves for life. While 
these papers were being arranged, a little yellow 
boy overheard the plot, and warned the children 
a few hours in advance of the officers. They in 
turn, living on the alert of chance, knew the 
work-house keeper, Poulnot, for his kindness to 
them on former occasions, and fled to him for pro- 
tection. He shut the doors of the prison upon them 
as he would upon some harmless animal seeking 
its escape from the savage ferocity of wild beasts. 
Here they remained fast, under the lock of the 
keeper of the prison ; and entered upon the cal- 
endar, by consent, as committed by Messrs. Hoppo 
and Johnson, "guardians." This was necessary, 
for they had no right to commit themselves, and 
the keeper would be liable for the consequences 
unless sustained by responsible names. 

Gilchrist, with Bob Austin and a posse, at noon- 
day repaired to the residence of the '^ property' — 
but it was gone. They followed it to the work- 
house, and producing the aforesaid bill of sale, 
demanded the " property" from the custody of the 
keeper, threatening hftn with imprisonment if he 
refused. Poulnot, honour to his name, for it will 
stand as a lasting record of firjmess in behalf of 



118 Uncle Tom at Home. 

humanity, refused to give them up, daring them 
to attempt a rescue ! He is persecuted, a suit is 
instituted by the Hudson party, and another de- 
mand is made, with papers and satisfactory certifi- 
cates, but he holds on as firm as ever, refusing to 
give them up until the case is decided by the Court. 
Northrop appears as attorney for the ivreclzers^ 
and after a shameful display of legal rascality, 
demands them, papers in hand, for the inrates. 

The possession of the " property" is now turned 
into a piratical chase, upon which several enjoin 
their honest energies. In addition to Northrop, 
Tupper appears as attorney for a Mrs. Price, who 
claims them by a singular technicality of relation- 
ship with the father. And finally, to cap the cli- 
max, Forcl^ the escheator of the State, interposes 
his claim on behalf of the State, demanding that 
these poor victims be sold on behalf of his sovereign 
client. Here they are in prison, awaiting the sit- 
ting of that court which is to decide a question, 
which to them ia liberty or death. 

After a long history of dark villany, which we 
cannot recount here, Anifa died in child-birth, 
alone, and within the narrow confines of a dark 
cell, presenting tbg appearance of a ghastly corpse 



Uncle Toji AT Home. 119 

to the turnkey who opened the cell in the morning. 
At this juncture, the " generous hearted" Magrath, 
a gentleman who has honoured his city, if his city 
has never honoured him in proportion, came for- 
ward as their attorney, and the case was brought 
before the Court of Sessions in Charleston, Octo- 
ber Term, 1844, Judge Withers presiding. The 
evidence elicited, the mendacity of the slave-deal- 
ers, the statement of the prison-keeper, the appear- 
ance of the children before the Court, and the elo- 
quent and feeling appeal of Magrath in behalf of 
their freedom, would fo^jn a subject fraught with 
more miseries than Mrs. Stowe's book has set forth. 
This case excited some interest at the time, 
and called forth a redundance of legal quibbling 
that would have disgraced the name of honor in a 
pirate's profession. Will Mr. Simms tell us what 
was the issue of this long and tedious case ? 

The characters of Austin and Gilchrist were 
exposed — their testimony impeached, and the bill 
of sale purporting to be from Bella Martin to 
Hudson, and in the handwriting of Austin, by a 
singular incident shown to be a forgery. It was 
further shown that Hudson had attempted to sell 
them before, and that Mrs. Price's claim was 



120 Uncle Tom at Home. 

invalid, she not being akin to the father of the 
children ; and yet Martin's will, which must have 
transcended to Hudson, cannot be found. 

The jury, after mature deliberation, render their 
conclusion that, although the children have pro- 
duced no proof to assert their freedom, they are 
not the " property " of the claimants, Hudson and 
Price — remanding them back to the custody of the 
prison keeper and their guardians. Thus the ques- 
tion of life and liberty was now between them and 
the sovereign State ; and it remained for Mr. Ford 
to bring his suit upon another ground, in order to 
throw the amount of testimony upon the children. 

Poulnot was on the alert, and having no order 
from court, delivered the ^'property" to its guar- 
dians before the cscheator had time to le^T". 

The boy was disguised, and ushered out of the 
State as quick as possible, and now lives a respec- 
table citizen in a northern city. The girl had 
become connected with a young German, who was 
as much attached to her as if she was his lawful 
wife, and would not consent to her leaving the 
State, but kept her locked up in his house, promis- 
ing to defend her at the issue of life and death. 

But the mendacity of the negro traders did not 



I 



Uncle Tom at Home. 121 

end here ; soon after the decision of the jury, and 
in the face of the court, an attempt was made to 
wrest them from the custody of the officers, and run 
them off. This being frustrated by a summary 
process, we must trace the victim, Eliza Price, to 
her friend's (Ashe) house, where she remains under 
his lock and protection for nearly three years, and 
dare not go into the street, lest she should fall into 
the hands of the officers whom the escheator had 
placed to arrest her. How is this ? the reader 
will ask, and the Carolinian will tell you how ne- 
cessary it is for the benefit of the slave. 

It is by one of those strange acts made to de- 
spoil the power of a majority, and crushing a few 
" free coloured" while aiming to protect the white 
population. By the act of the legislature of 1821, 
the power of emanumition, which formerly existed 
in a board of judicial magistrates, is reverted to 
a committee of the House, and so burdened with 
provisions as to render it almost impossible for a 
majority of masters to manumit their slaves, if 
they felt disposed, unless they sent them immedi- 
ately out of the State. The principle features of 
the provisions being the deposit of a heavy collat- 
eral fund, and enormous bonds for the good beha- 
4 



122 Uncle Tom at Home. 

viour of the "property" — that it will not become 
a town charge, &c., &c. In default of this the 
State renders the "property" subject to escJieate, 
and the slave is sold on its behalf without any re- 
serve for its condition in the hands of subsequent 
owners. 

These children were born slaves by inheritance 
of the mother, and had not proved their freedom, 
nor had Martin, by his will, conformed to the re- 
quirements of the statutes. Hence it becomes the 
escheator to get his fees, and look after the State's 
interest — and thus the action. Three years she 
remains in durance under the protection of Mr. 
Ashe, when, on the 22d day of October last, dur- 
ing his absence from home, under an impression 
that the matter had ended, the officers broke into 
his house, dragged Eliza and her young child oifj 
captives of the law, and committed them to the 
custody of the work-house keeper, there to await 
an order of sale from the Court. She cannot 
prove her freedom, for she is deprived of the 
means ; so we shall await the issue between this 
poor, last remnant of fortune's misfortunes and the 
State's pride. 

Had Mr. Simms lent a listening ear to the long 



Uncle Tom AT Home. 123 

train of miseries connected with this case, and 
sifted the evidence with the feelings of one en- 
listed in the cause of humanity, he would have 
saved a Southern reputation as well as a " Southern 
View." You have said to the world that the book 
was a tissue of falsehood. We say to the world, 
these are the truths of Mrs. Stowe's book, staring 
you in the face ; and before you again raise a pen 
against them, go to that municipal slave pen, '4he 
work-house," with its four hundred pens, to mea- 
sure the square inches of human length and 
breadth; and in one of these cold cloisters, on 
the second floor, you will find Eliza Price and her 
child. Her cell is seven-by-four feet, or nearly, 
and if you cannot get into it, call her to the door — 
sit down by her, ask why she was put in there 
instead of the jail? study the point of law it was 
intended to evade, and listen to the story of her 
wretched life. Imagine it just as full of poetry 
as if it came from white lips, for her soul is ^v^lite, 
and her lips are nearly so ; then give her that as- 
sistance which it behooves a good Samaritan, or she 
will be sold into slavery for the benefit of the State. 
21st. While Mr. Simms is at the work-house, 
we cannot better answer another point of his 



124 Uncle Tom at Home. 

"View," than by referring him to the cases of 
Caleb and Alexander McKim, brothers, who were 
set free by the Quakers in Maryland. After an 
attempt had been made to sell these "boys," in 
Craven County, North Carolina, and objected to 
by Sheriflf Chadwick, they are decoyed into a 
sequestered place, chains secured with padlocks 
put about their necks, their hands and feet mana- 
cled, put into a waggon, and driven at full speed 
to Grahamville, by Tilman Cherry. There he was 
met by Bob Adams, who pays an amount of money 
to Cherry, takes his chained property, and pro- 
ceeds with it to the steamer at Wilmington, bound 
for Charleston. On board of the steamer their 
chains are released, and while Adams sleeps, they 
disclose their history to the captain, who inter- 
cedes for them, and they are handed over to an 
officer of police in Charleston. This officer pro- 
cured a commitment from 3Iagistrate G-yles^ and 
upon this they are committed to jail. Now, in 
this position, the magistrate is an absolute func- 
tionary — he has made no return of the case, and 
they are simply committed upon parole evidence. 
Thus the jailer recognises his order of discharge 
as positive. Now by law these "boys" were en- 



Uncle Tom at Home. 125 

titled to a hearing before a proper tribunal ; but 
they had no money, consequently unable to pro- 
cure counsel to proceed for them. They offered 
to work if an attorney would take up their cause, 
and we used our endeavours to procure one for 
them, knowing they were unsafe in their position, 
but justice had no life for them ; and their cause 
was so unpopular that we could enlist nobody. 

The official by-play connected with slave-dealers 
and magistrates would be a good subject for Mr. 
Simms to study. It would not only enlighten 
him upon the theory of moral honesty, but 
strengthen his views upon home subjects. But 
they were got away by Bob Adams, and how did 
he effect it ? Why he proceeded immediately on 
to Mississippi with his gang, leaving the affair of 
the McKims' in the hands of his " broker," Mr. 

; here he procures the services of a dealer 

in the art, with whom he is interested, and very 
soon an affidavit is returned to Charleston, charg- 
ing that they '' are runaways" from a gentleman 

in that State. Mr. produces this affidavit 

before " Gyles," the matter of dollars and cents 
is arranged, and he issues his order of discharge 
to the jailer, and the slave-dealer is in possession 



126 Uncle Tom at Home. 

of his " stolen property" again. The " broker," 

Mr. , manacled these men in our presence. 

"Where are you going to take us?" said Caleb, 
as the chains were being put upon him. " To give 

you fifty a-piece, and then hang you, you !" 

said the broker ; and they were taken to the work- 
house, where they were confined to evade another 
point. 

Now, Mr. Simms, trace these boys into Hyde 
County, North Carolina, and you will find they 
were free. Caleb sailed Franklin Benden's boat 
to Newburn for several years, and Alexander run 
E. Jones' flat from Beaufort to Newburn. This 
is but one case among the many home truths 
growing in your own " blooming garden of free- 
dom." You cannot point to an instance where 
the penalty for running ofi" free negroes has been 
carried out. 

The whole lawful strength of Mr. Simms' 
" Southern View," for the condemnation of Mrs. 
Stowe's book, rests upon the following citation, 
which he gives us after several columns upon its 
general merits. Speaking of the killing of runa- 
ways, and the clearness and precision of a " South 
Carolina judge" upon the subject, he says : " We 



Uncle Tom at HoxMe. 127 

cannot forbear quoting his dictum as directly in 
point. In the case of Yetsell and Earnest and 
Parker, Colcock, J., delivered the ojnnion of the 
court," as follows : 

" By the statute of 1740, any white man may 
apprehend and moderately correct, any slave who 
may be found out of the plantation at which he is 
employed. And if the slave assault the white 
person, he may be killed ; but a slave who is 
merely flying away cannot be killed. Nor can 
the defendants be justified by common law, if we 
consider the negro as a person ; for they were 
ilot clothed with the authority of the law to ap- 
prehend him as a felon, and without such autho- 
rity he could not be killed. January term, 1818, 
1st Nott & McCord's, S. C. Reports, 182." 

We coincide with Mr. Simms in reference to 
the clearness of the "learned judge's dictum:" it 
is so perfectly clear the legal gentlemen, slave- 
hunters, and cruel masters may drive their points 
"right" through it, founding their legal discrimi- 
nation upon its if! 

22d. The ofi"ering a reward for the apprehen- 
sion of runaways, dead or alive, is another strong 
evidence against the book in question. We admit 



128 Uncle Tom at Home. 

that the singularity of this part of the book would 

seem strange to the distant reader's mind ; but it 
must be remembered that castes and societies are 
differently organized in the South from those in 
the North — more distinct^and at greater variance 
with each other. Among the lower of them, there 
exists a species of desperate recklessness, priding 
itself in disregard of common rights. South Caro- 
lina is blessed with a large portion of this semi- 
barbaric species, who form a melo-comic contrast 
to that polished refinement so much boasted of. 
They are called crackers, pin-e-woods-men, sand- 
■pit-ers, wire-grass-men, &c., &:c. They are a sort 
of squatter ("landholders"), with little or no edu- 
cation — owing to a wretched system of schools 
in that State — and live principally in log huts on 
the barren tracts of land. At certain seasons of 
the year they scruple at no occupation, however 
menial, and have a slang cant peculiar to them- 
selves. They always have a little patch of corn 
growing, and always have a stock on hand ; and in 
their efforts to keep it good they frequently feel 
the planters' shot about their heels. There is an 
Indian primitiveness about them without any of 
the Indian's nobleness ; their higliest ambition is 



Uncle Tom at Home. 129 

roaming the woods with rifles and double-barrel 
shot guns, hunting the planters' hogs, runaway 
niggers, or killing a deer. 

Mrs. Stowe's Kentucky bar-room is a perfect 
picture of a " Tavern" at the crossing filled with 
these men, when the candidate for Assembly gives 
his "•free-wilV feast. 

They are sure marksmen, and in hunting ne- 
groes would think no more of killing one than they 
would a dog ; we can point Mr. Simms to a dozen 
cases. The planters stand in fear of them, and to 
punish their depredations is sure to be returned 
with firing the woods and demolishing fences. 
Two particular cases are of recent occurrence. 
One of them, Vaigneur, took deliberate aim with 
his double-barrel gun, and shot a lady dead while 
standing in her own door. This was done with 
public coolness, in the town of Gillisonville. We 
visited him in prison, and he unfolded to us a his- 
tory which, perhaps, few in South Carolina know. 

Another became so " entranced" with the ap- 
pearance of a young lady's watch and chain, (a 
school teacher,) that he " brought her down" with 
his double-barrel gun, at the door of hor school ; 
then tearing the jewelry from her lifeless body, 



130 UxcLE Tom at Home. 

put it about his neck, and deliberately walked into 
the town. In a state of society like this, and where 
so many fatal rencontres are taking place among 
better citizens, our knowledge of the inconsistency 
of things leaves us no compunction in believing 
that negroes are killed by such men ; in fact, we 
know they are. We might instance the case of 
Jones and Pridgeon, in 1850. One negro was 
killed, and the other drowned himself in the Sa- 
vannah river ; and we know that singular rewards 
are offered for their apprehension. 

On asking a gentleman why he offered a rew^ard 
of seventy-five dollars for the apprehension of a ne- 
gro sixty-five years of age, who had been absent two 
years, ''To kill the d — d old rascal," he replied. 

We have a letter in our possession from a highly 
respectable and good master, sent to Pridgeon, 
a negro catcher, offering a hundred dollars for the 
recovery of his (bad) negro fellow, who had been ab- 
sent more than a year, adding that he did not 
care so much for the worth of him, but was deter- 
mined to have satisfaction out of him; "and if you 
can't catch him any other way, shoot the " 

We m^st have stronger proof than Mr. Simms 
has given us before we can condemn the book, even 
here. 



Uncle Tom at Home. 131 

23d. We come to that point which Mr. Simms, 
following the voice of several others, has denounced. 
The reader must not judge from the rules of law 
laid down in the State cited bj Mr. Simms, though 
we are free to admit that mothers are more fre- 
quently sold from their children than children from 
their mothers. Means of evading the law are 
always at hand, and the force of necessity super- 
cedes — even in "Virginia," where a striking in- 
stance came under our observation on the 30th of 
November last. It is well known that common 
law takes precedent over those made to invest the 
negro with rights ; we will instance a case in 

Charleston. B owned a "wench" and her 

child about three years and six months old. 

B is indebted to C , who holds a mortixasze 

on the " wench ;" he is also indebted to Mr. R , 

a grocer, who seizes the child and sells it in satis- 
faction of the debt — and is sustained by law. 

We have seen a child levied upon, and sent to 
jail to satisfy the demand of one creditor, who 
receiving his claim from the owner, she was held 
under a detainer for another, and finally sold, the 
owner not being able to raise means to discharge 
the second debt. It was fatal for Mr. Simms to 
wander beyond his own State for validity, when 



132 Uncle Tom at Home. 

he knew none existed. It shows a dh'ect inten- 
tion, and want of moral courage, sufficient to give 
us light from home. 

24th. We now come to George Harris, and upon 
such a noble character in the person of a negro, 
Mr. Simms takes particular exceptions. He wants 
a character ; and we could not present one in 
more perfection than the boy *' Nicholas," who 
caused the emeute in 1849. A Ijero of nature, but 
not of the world, for an allwise Providence had 
clothed him in a black skin. 

There are far more exciting incidents about 
Nicholas' character than that of George Harris'. 
Nicholas was a stucco-worker — one of the first in 
the city. His master, Kelley, a known tyrant, 
promises him his freedom on payment of a stipu- 
lated sum. The boy labours at extra work until 
midnight every night, burning with the love of 
freedom within him. After paying more than a 
third of the sum, he was defrauded by his Master, 
and when he sought for justice, denied it ! With 
the natural feelings of a man basely defrauded 
out of that which he earned by the sweat of his 
brow to purchase freedom, he became incensed 
against his Master, refused to pay him his hard 



Uncle Tom at Home. 133 

earnings any further, and bid him defiance ! He 
is tortured, sent to New Orleans, brought back 
again, and yet refuses to give his oppressor the 
sweat of his brOw. He is placed in the slave-pen 
of Norman Gadsden ; here he suffers again, de- 
claring his intention to die in the struggle for his 
rights. An attempt is again made to send him 
to New Orleans — he disarms the slave-traders, 
and swears he will not be separated from his 
family associations. McNamara, and other con- 
stables are brought to seize him; but he has be- 
come like an enraged demon, and they are forced 
to capture him in his pen, as they would a brute. 
He has left the scar of his weapon upon McNa- 
mara, and notwithstanding he is thrown into a 
cart, and taken almost lifeless to the jail, he has 
injured the majesty of the law. Here cruel tor- 
tures are resorted to, with a view of extorting a 
confession from him, which is at length done. 
Animal life and mental soul is subdued at last. 
He is tried before a court of three freeholders, 
and two judicial magistrates, found guilty, and 
sentenced to be hung. A kind voice is raised for 
him, his case carried to the appeal court, and a 
new trial ordered, on the ground that evidence had 
been extorted by cruelty. 



134 Uncle Tom AT Home. 

Again he is tried, found guilty, and sen- 
tenced to three years' solitary confinement, with 
five paddles each month. The keeper of the pri- 
son finds his genius worth a treasure, and instead 
of regarding the sentence, sets him to work at 
ornamental stucco, and makes a profit by it. The 
law has separated him from family associations, and 
he falls in love with a young mulatto woman, who 
is for sale by Gilchrist and Bob Austin. They 
go to remove her from the prison, when his soul 
and body again becomes fired, and he swears he 
will die before they shall take her from the yard, 
driving-slave dealers, keepers, and everything else 
before him. The mayor is sent for, but during 
the interval Nicholas calls on his fellow-slaves to 
join him. They seize weapons and follow his 
lead; and as the mayor, with his posse, opens the 
gate, his arm is broken, and he laid prostrate on 
the ground at Nicholas' feet. Here is a George 
Harris at your own door — one which soars far 
above that of Mrs. Stowe's book. Trace it to 
the wrongs of a cruel Master, and the mendacity 
of slave-dealers, and you have the disease work- 
ing into the very core of your social well being. 
25th. As Mr. Simms has commented at some 



Uncle Tom at Home. 135 

length upon her fault as a dramatist, we must give 
it a passing notice. It is somewhat remarkable 
that men seldom know their own faults, and in the 
remarks upon her dramatic defects, and the singu- 
larity of position between George Harris and 
Uncle Tom, we have strong evidences of it. Mr. 
Simms should have been the last writer calling 
this subject into question. He must remember, 
that so far as the stage is concerned, rules of cri- 
ticism have materially changed, as well as the 
point of pleasing different audiences. The rule of 
inevitable catastrophes in every scene, for effect, 
is known to have been repudiated by good cri- 
tics upon playing, for while it aided to continue 
an excitement in the feelings, it confused and 
impaired the general plot. 

But let us turn to the material merit. The ob- 
ject of the author is clearly defined, showing two 
principal phases in the slave's life, that of the old 
man passing through the usual course of incidents 
in such a life ; the other, in a higher sphere,among 
that large class of mixed Saxon, whose high blood 
cannot endure the wrongs of his Master's lash — 
determined upon liberty, and braving the perils of 
attaining it. Now, according to Mr. Simms, she 



136 U X c L E Tom at Home. 

should have brought them into one atmosphere ! 
Could she have done this against an absurdity 
■which presents itself at once? The roads grading 
into the depths of slavery are on the one side, and 
freedom on the other. How then could she have 
combined the threads of her narrative upon one 
detailed path, and given the strength of reality, 
extent of research, and embodiment of the general 
subject with the grasp that she has ? To us, con- 
sidering the subject of the book, it is a beauty of 
foreseen plan worthy of admiration instead of con- 
demnation. What' struck our attention most for- 
cibly, was the strength of ingenuity displayed in 
grouping the tableaux of her last scenes. Here 
the dramatist finds a picture for a beautiful finale, 
without transplanting it with difi'erent language 
and adaptation. Put a book into the hands of 
a manager to be dramatised, and brought out upon 
the stage, he views the arrangement of characters — 
the quality of language regulated according to 
the position of the drcnnatis persoiioe, the general 
merits of the subject with regard to efi'ect upon 
country or community, and the point of interest 
at his own door. We may differ from Mr. Simms, 
though he is aware that we have examined his 



Uncle Tom at Home. 137 

books for dramatic purposes, but we cannot see 
how a person with true dramatic knowledge can 
read the book without seeing the adjuncts of a 
fresh, life-like piece for the stage before him. 
Each character is adapted to the business of ac- 
tors according to their different ranges, and with 
language in their mouths embodying their own 
character. Can we turn to Mr. Simms, and say 
the same ? If Mrs. Stowe were at fault she could 
find no better excuse than to curtain herself behind 
the dramatic defects of Mr. Simms ; perhaps we 
should have made an exception, for Mr. Simms has 
never reached a dramatic scale. The " Wigwam 
and Cabin," unnatural with its scenes thrown in 
juxtaposition — characters loathing with obscenity, 
in their shadowed life, and language of insipid 
vulgarity in their mouths, to give them an epic 
nauseau without unfolding the embodiment of life, 
are there. We look for a plot to give it life — we 
look for the points that we may localise it, and 
bring it upon the stage, but they are not there, and 
we are forced to abandon it. 

Let us turn to the ^^ Golden Christmas;" a 
pretty story drawn from amiable genius, to show 
the sunny side of pictured life: — let us search 



138 Uncle Tom at Home. 

among the Ned Bunner's, Paulla Beanseux' and 
Beatrice Mayzek's. AVe find a shadow of the 
mere object, devoid of language to give character 
and effect. Nothing from which we can draw the 
material of a piece, unless we tear down the whole 
structure, and rebuild at a greater expense than it 
would cost for an original. We may look them 
through — but the beauty of character with which 
Mrs. Stowe has embodied St. Clare, and the soul- 
stirring love of that sweet child, who recognises 
her protector in the old servant, fondles around 
him in the joy of buoyant life, and breathes her 
last prayer for his liberty, is not there. Has he 
given us the amiable traits of life thus drawn in 
the substance of character ? The reader will say, 
No ! And yet, strange as it may seem, he has 
ridiculed Mrs. Stowe for the closing scenes of her 
book, and in his concluding scenes of the " Golden 
Christmas" is the most singular transposition ever 
presented for the reader's mind. 

Norman Morris is a different work; written 
and intended for the stage. The work opens a 
wide field for criticism, and our space, not allow- 
ing us to review^ it in detail, we will deal gently 
with Mr. Simms, by assuring him that it never 



Uncle Tom at Home. 139 

will reach the stage unless it be remedied, both 
in language and appointment. The hero must be 
a hero in language, and character, and soul ; and 
Clarissa must have words to give her inward senti- 
ment pathos, refinement, and a spirit to play the 
lady. Speeches must be reduced, the language 
of deep thought substituted for that of common 
place, and the call-boy's language made to con- 
trast with the hero's. We have done with our 
comparisons for the present. 

With regard to the careless amiability of Marie 
St. Clare's character, Mr. Simms points us to 
New England for specimens. We have no desire 
to charge want of energy and enterprise against 
Southern ladies — far from it ! But there is some- 
thing established in national opinion which is 
hard to reason against ; and even Southerners, we 
mean the gentlemen, really admire it when they 
come North and see the ladies. It would be well 
for Mr. Simm§ to open his views to a wider scene 
of generality — leave the picture of tlmt luxuriant- 
living lady at the South, who would seem not born 
to herself, but to some dependent existence ; and 
that there were creatures springing up around 
her to be her handmaids for ever. Go into New 



140 Uncle Tom at Home. 

England, see the energy, force of character, 
moral industry, position, and happiness of the 
working class ; the distribution of property and 
reigning cheerfulness and justice guiding her on 
to a higher destiny — contrast it with the bloated 
decline of dissolute life that surrounds him, and 
from that contrast learn lessons of true republican 
nobility. 

Mrs. Stowe's book is like a faltering moon 
hovering over his own city to light up the dark 
scenes of horror and injustice. Let it be the 
opening of a better prospect for the enslaved — 
like a speck opening among the clouds to let down 
the light of heaven for those who cry in need. 
Let his thoughts be possessions for the benefit of 
men, and truth in concord with his style of imper- 
sonation. He must not he like Garrick, trembling 
at his own bursts of passion ; nor like Walpole, 
standing in cold reluctant wonder. He must 
be a Whitefield in voice and spirit, and a John 
Howard ininind and energy — exploring the paths 
that lead amid benighted nature, pointing to 
the skirting precipice that may lead down into 
the dark abyss. 

In conclusion let us say to Mr. Simms, Think 



Uncle Tom at Home. 141 

no more of bold strokes and brilliant surprises ; 
let your thoughts and actions merge into the 
stream of humanity, and go among simple nature 
and be its guardian. And in answer to your con- 
cluding text — to which you have referred Mrs. 
Stowe, " Thou shalt not bear false witness against 
thy neighbour" — let us say : Bear false wit- 
ness AGAINST THYSELF NO MORE. 

Note. — This Review, with the exception of one or two pages 
at the commencement, was written in December last — since 
then the prediction with regard to the case of Craig has 
been verified: he was "honourably acquitted," but a man, 
if such he may be called, has really been hanged in South 
Carolina for killing his slave, eight years old. A friend, a 
true Southerner, writes us that he bore a general bad cha- 
racter ; was a bad neighbour, and cruel to his family and 
slaves ; that the evidence was stronger that he killed the mo- 
ther of the child, than the child for whose death he paid the 
sad penalty ; that he chained the little girl to a horse in the 
field, and whipped her severely, but that she was not under 
punishment when she died. 

We know our informant to be a man of noble parts, yet 
a good and faithful secessionist; and he adds, that the 
coroner's jury having slurred the matter over, that circum- 
stance influenced the jury that tried him. He wishes us to 
publish the circumstance, because he thinks it reflects great 
credit upon slave-holders ; adding, that <' he died firm, ex- 
pecting reprieve or rescue to the last moment." 



142 Uncle Tom at Home. 

We take this as an evidence that the book is doing good, 
although opposed to capital punishment. It has aroused 
slumbering justice ; and the rejoicing over one retribution 
should be sounded to the credit of "our South." There ia 
nothing like praise, if it be well sounded. 



THE END. 



